


Four Ducks on a Pond

by hw_campbell_jr



Series: Four Ducks on a Pond [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Exhibitionism, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Shameless Smut, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 12:04:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20470751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hw_campbell_jr/pseuds/hw_campbell_jr
Summary: In which the Heavenly Husbands contemplate taking a couple of fangy ducklings under their wings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burnadette_dpdl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burnadette_dpdl/gifts).

> I wrote this for @i-want-my-iwtv on tumblr (aka Burnadette_dpdl). 
> 
> She asked me, a while ago, what did I think about writing a GOmens/VC crossover. I said it was impossible. You can't take the lovely, optimistic, happy-ending GOmens and mash it up with the relentlessly grim and terrible VC. It's oil and water. Best just to enjoy them separately and never the twain shall meet. 
> 
> And then I wrote this. Well, I wrote the first part of this. It's part one of a longer work. 
> 
> Please think of it as a much nicer Gulfport AU, as ultimately that is what it is. Readers of Gulfport (which yes, I am working on again) must surely have known that it was never going to have a happy ending without divine intervention.

In the South Downs, they were still arranging things. It was a process, moving their lives from London piece by piece, settling upon what Crowley called “the _ aesthetic_” in a camp and slightly sarcastic voice. It was a soft, sweet bit of teasing that made Aziraphale laugh, and when he laughed, Crowley smiled at him. Or grinned, really, it was a pure and unrepentant grin and so absolutely like him that it was impossibly attractive and so naturally, they kissed. Every time, in fact. It had become difficult to get things done because of all the kissing.

But they had managed some of it. They had a functional cottage, which had indoor plants and surfaces to sit on and a bed and a working kitchen. It had a garden, which was not complete but was off to a good start, and four chickens. The books were about half selected, most of the records were, and there was, Aziraphale was pleased to say, indeed a coherent aesthetic. At least it was coherent enough to sit in and drink wine, which was really the main thing.

Where they were stuck now was flourishes and decoration. Aesthetically speaking, that was a challenge. Basic things like towels weren’t, those could just be “nice”, as Aziraphale put it, and in a neutral color. But if you were going to have art, perhaps even rugs or curtains – and they had rugs and curtains but perhaps not the right ones – then that was different. It was a discussion. A discussion that was both pointless and delicious and had gone on for days and after moving the new sofa around _ one more time _ so as to think about it, they pretended to take a break.

They didn’t sit on the sofa because they didn’t want to. They sat on the carpet. They played records on the stereo and did, in fact, drink wine in order to better talk about them. At some point Aziraphale made them a plate of crackers and cheese and things, which Crowley did not display interest in, but he ate them when they were handed to him and so Aziraphale did just that, one at a time, making him a little cracker and putting it in his hand. Crowley would eat it without comment and then carry on talking. Explaining Ornette Coleman. Then telling him about the Bach underneath blues music, and then that underneath Black Sabbath.

There was something very lovely about how Crowley took the crackers. Trusting. Aziraphale remembered how many times he had done this, on how many other long and wine seasoned nights, and how much he had wanted making the cracker to mean the same thing as touching Crowley’s face, touching him there just gently, to brush the hair back at his temple, imagining that Crowley might sigh against his hand. Then he remembered where they were now and the fact that that was wholly allowed and so he did that as well. And they kissed. Again. They smiled and leaned their heads together and kissed. They drank more wine and continued listening to records, and continued christening their new home. 

The fact that Crowley could manage to monologue lying on his back on the floor with the same joie de vivre as he did while standing was _ hilarious_. What a singular being, Aziraphale couldn’t stop thinking. What a clever thing, what an absolute goon, with his quick smile and his gangly arms up in the air like that. His _ ways_, quite frankly, just his ways in every particular, from his cranky grunts to his artful lounging to his formidable resilience. It was difficult to articulate that, how special Crowley was, let alone through a sparkly haze of drink, but the joy of it was such that it filled Aziraphale up and made him laugh. It made him laugh at everything Crowley said. Crowley smiled at him indulgently. “Alright there?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, just… oh dear.”

“Drunk?”

“Getting there.”

“Good drunk?”

“Absolutely the best.”

“D’you know you’ve gone pink?”

“D’you know,” Aziraphale said, “I want to give you a cuddle.”

That got him the grin again. “By all means.”

He clambered over until he was sitting on top of Crowley, on his stomach. Crowley’s sharp little hipbones poked into his backside, but he didn’t mind that. “Oof,” Crowley said, but then he grinned even wider and slid his hands over the front of Aziraphale’s body before resting them at his waist. “Hello, angel.”

“Am I crushing you?” Aziraphale asked him.

“No, I’m crushing on you,” Crowley said. It sounded brazen and silly at the same time and it set a warm glow going in Aziraphale’s belly. “This is good, now you’re in feeling range.”

Crowley’s hands were moving in place, his fingers softly massaging where he’d laid them, right where Aziraphale’s waistcoat didn’t quite meet his pants and there was only shirt fabric and undershirt. It felt very good, that movement. Smaller than Aziraphale thought should be called ‘a feel’, perhaps, but very good. “Glad I could oblige.”

“Haven’t had a good feel all day.”

“Living up to expectations?”

“Oh, exceeding them.”

Aziraphale smiled. He took a drink and wriggled himself against Crowley’s body approvingly. “We need something to go there, specifically,” he said.

“Where?”

“Behind you. On that wall. There’s a spot. It needs an art… thing. Some kind of art.”

Crowley shifted under him, awkwardly. He craned his neck to try to see. “What, there? Sure, yeah.”

“An art, singular. One individual _ objet_.”

“Is it called _ objet _ if it’s a painting?”

“No, I’m just being silly. You can’t say ‘an art’. Can you?”

Crowley snorted. He put on a voice. “Hello, sir, I would like to purchase an art, please.” His hands hadn’t stopped moving and they hadn’t stopped feeling good.

“Yes, just so.”

“I’ve got some art.”

“I know you have, dear, but that’s a little spot. It’s not grand enough for an original sketch of the Mona Lisa.”

“Where are we going to put that? Because it’s got to be somewhere, it’s got my name on it.”

“I don’t know, but not there. It’s a show-piece, I feel. We might have to think quite laterally about it.”

Crowley pouted theatrically. Aziraphale made a sympathetic cluck and put his wine down and slid his hands under Crowley’s shirt. The skin of Crowley’s stomach was warm. Hairy. Silky, even. What a delightful thing he was. Aziraphale let his hands explore the entire front of him, and what made that even sweeter was the way Crowley watched him do it. His pout dropped away instantly – it had been a joke anyway – and a little smile came over him and his eyes glittered, golden in the firelight, and he seemed very pleased that someone was stroking him.

It appeared, however, to be difficult for him to drink from that position. He had to arch his neck and suck at the rim of the wine glass. The second time he did it he spilled it on his face. He laughed into the glass, which made it worse, and Aziraphale laughed at him, and leaned forward to kiss the wine off his skin and then his mouth and when he did that, Crowley pulled him forward. “_ Good _,” he said, gruffly, gripping tight, bear-hugging. After a second he untucked Aziraphale’s shirt from his pants from the back, slid his hands under it and held him there.

He wasn’t saying ‘good’ in response to anything, it seemed. Just announcing to the universe that he thought things were good. And his hands on Aziraphale’s back were _ heavenly_. And the feeling of his stomach against Aziraphale’s own, that too. Skin on skin, that was always so wonderful. They kissed. They kissed messily, and then somehow that was also funny. “I need,” Aziraphale said, “another drink. And so do you, because that one’s history. Such a mucky puppy.”

“A _ what_?”

“Let me just fetch the bottle.”

From where he was sitting, on Crowley, he could just about reach it. He leaned over and hooked it and pulled it in. He poured wine into his glass, but not very well, because he was laughing. Some of it got on Crowley. “Oi, watch it,” Crowley said, but he laughed too. “We need a darker carpet or we’ll be miracling away wine stains for the rest of time.”

“Or we could sit on chairs.”

“Pft, _ chairs_,” Crowley said. “Who needs _ chairs_? Don’t like chairs, might never sit on one again.”

“That’s a bit extreme, the poor sofa. We’ve just got it.” 

“Because I’m lying on the floor and you’re sitting on me and you’ve got a lovely soft little ass and it feels great, that’s why. Can’t get that on a chair.”

“You absolute charmer.”

“Is it working?”

“Is what working?”

Crowley made a click with his mouth. His hands made gentle squeezes at Aziraphale’s hips, tender strokes at his thighs and at the small of his back. He looked up, right into Aziraphale’s eyes again and cocked his head. “Tempt you to a spot of sex?”

That was _ stupidly _ funny. It was so funny wine came out of Aziraphale’s nose and it got on _ everything_. And Crowley did _ not _ seem to mind. If anything, he looked delighted.

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale said.

“Right then.”

“I’d absolutely love to. What a perfect idea.”

“Thought it might be fun.”

“_ Fun_,” Aziraphale said. “Oh my dearest darling.”

“So it’s not fun?”

“It’s _ definitely _ fun.”

“What’s on the menu?”

“What about…” Aziraphale giggled “… what about… oh dear… what if I fuck you?”

Watching Crowley’s face was really an education. A lot happened on it. His eyes lit up and he flash grinned, he pouted his lips out and blew air through them. He seemed to be making a grand performance of nonchalance. “Sure.”

“It’s very optional, dear.”

“I’ll take the option.”

“I quite like it,” Aziraphale said. “Getting, as they say, all up in you.”

“Who says that?” Crowley said, but he was grinning. He had his hands at Aziraphale’s hips again, holding there.

“Oh, just people,” Aziraphale said, wriggling around. “Help me get your pants off, they’re so tight, my goodness. Who are you trying to impress?”

“You.”

“Well, that worked too.”

“Did it?”

“You’re most heartbreakingly dashing, my dear. You’ll make me swoon.”

“_Dashing_,” Crowley said. He said it sarcastically, but he was worming his pants down against the carpet. Aziraphale leaned back to help and then just to let him do it. It was easier that way. When the pants were removed he slid a hand between Crowley’s thighs and leaned over him.

“Yes, dashing,” he said. “Always rescuing me. Striding out of a burning car like nothing’s the matter. Does it feel nice, when I touch you there?”

Crowley made another pretense at nonchalance, but it was layered now. It was supposed to look like a performance now, Aziraphale thought, because he was also moving, moving his body against Aziraphale’s hand in a manner that was, for lack of a better word, slutty. The muscle in his thigh felt firm and Aziraphale gripped it, and Crowley’s smile slid out to the corners of his mouth.

“It’s all nice,” Crowley said. “You’re nice. I like it.”

“You deserve it. Let me kiss you properly.”

“What’s properly,” Crowley had started to say, but he didn’t get to finish it because Aziraphale showed him. And it did seem to be properly because he felt Crowley swelling against him in that tender, human way. His arms wound around Aziraphale’s neck and he slipped his body up close. Aziraphale placed a hand into the small of his back to pull him closer, and travelled his other one around in the same direction, so that he could get between his thighs again, but from the back.

How wonderful Crowley’s corporeal body was. Everything about it, from the way he could move it to the mere fact it was tied to him made it miraculous, and never more so than now where he writhed and fell and Aziraphale could all but scoop him up. His legs wound around Aziraphale’s like a vine. His smile was infectious and kissing him was absolute bliss.

“You can stick it in, go ahead,” Crowley said.

Handy that they didn’t have to use anything, could use a minor, reflexive miracle for that. Not that that sort of organization had been terrible with real humans, not at all, it was just another particularity and every one of those felt special at the present time. So did Crowley’s ass-cheek against his hand. “Bit of an odd angle, that won’t be comfortable for you.”

“Right, yeah.”

“Here, let’s get a little traction up against this sofa.”

“Least it’s good for something.”

“Lean back against it, dear, and if you’ll just lift your hips a little I can… ah yes. There.”

He took himself in hand and pushed, at once, all the way in. Stunning and delightful, the slickness of that, the way the tender muscle parted then nestled around him. Remarkable. But Crowley gasped and Aziraphale came together enough to realize that he might have been rude. He clucked his tongue. “Too much?”

“No,” Crowley said. “No. Right… amount.”

Aziraphale moved. “Do you like that?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to be forward.”

“Doesn’t get much more forward than this, angel.”

“Well, I didn’t…”

“Be quiet,” Crowley said. “Or talk if you want to, I don’t care. But I do… like it.”

He did like it. Under all the cockiness, the heart in his human-shaped body was pounding and Aziraphale could feel it. He pulled him closer, cradled his head. Crowley’s arms went all the way around him. “My dear,” Aziraphale said. “I love you so much.”

He said it, and then he thrust, and Crowley sighed beautifully. “Love you too,” he said. His voice was strained. Each subsequent push in made hot little breaths come out of him. Aziraphale felt his squirmy, angular body blossom to receive him, felt him shift and open up, felt the heels of his feet at the back of his own thighs. How nice that was. How much _ niceness _ in these fleshy vessels.

“So much,” Aziraphale said.

“Mmm.”

“It’s like I’m taking care of you. Taking… keeping you safe, oh…”

“Mmm.”

“You do so need to be kept safe.”

As distracted as he was, Crowley reacted to that. “From what?” he said, snorting. So funny how he tried not to let the physical pressure of what was happening to him affect his voice. It didn’t work, but he tried, the dear thing.

“From everything. Bad thoughts.”

“Inferior sex.”

“That too.”

“You’re certainly… ah… rescuing me from that.”

Aziraphale kissed him. He drew his shoulders up. “I,” he said, “am bringing sexy back,” and Crowley snorted again. Then he laughed. Giggled really. Positively adorable, that was. He had to squeeze the laughter through his teeth and breathe out his nose. “Oh, did it go somewhere,” he said, when he could.

“Nowhere it couldn’t be found,” Aziraphale said. He pressed his hands against Crowley’s shoulders and pushed in sharp and hard and it made Crowley gasp again and almost whimper. “That’s right, dear. That’s right.”

“Aziraphale…”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

“You feel very good.”

“So do you.”

“Very good.”

“Alright there yourself?”

“Very, very good, ah.”

“D’you think we’ll get bored of doing this or is it like drinking?”

Only Crowley would have done that. Get distracted and ask an odd little question in the middle of all this. That was stunningly sweet. Do ducks have ears, do angels get tired of fucking each other? Crowley’s face seemed evenly split between earnest wondering and warm, underlit pleasure, as if because he was excited, because he was happy, it was also nice to have a think. What an absolutely perfect creature.

“Like drinking,” Aziraphale said.

“Sorry.”

“Oh no, my dear, oh no, you mustn’t be… sorry… I love… I love how curious you are and…”

“Heh, you’re gonna come. Already. D’you know, I can really pick it now, I’m really getting good. Seems odd, I think, coming, you know, it’s just one moment and it’s done. Very human, all of this build up just for one little flash. We probably don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, dear.”

“D’you think…” he started to say but Aziraphale gripped his hips and shoved into him so hard it made him arch his back. “Oh _ fuck_.”

“Can’t imagine getting bored of this.”

“Yeah, I… _ fuck_. _ Fuck_, Aziraphale.”

“Is that nice?”

“It’s not fucking _ nice _ it’s fucking _ brilliant, _ you… _ fuck_.”

“That’s right, dear.”

“_ Fuck_.”

“I can pick it too,” Aziraphale said. He did a soft, pretend-chastising tone and shook his head: “_ already_.”

He could pick it. It wasn’t just the shouting. It was also the feel of Crowley’s body, the pressure of the muscles inside him. It was his heart speeding up and blood racing to the surface of his skin, hotter, pinker. His hands tightening on Aziraphale’s back, rigid. He breathed in, hard, and Aziraphale drove right into him, one more time, and then Crowley came, with a soft little “oh” in the tight space between their bodies and then he panted. The feel of that, and then the fact that it pulsed, and evidently made Crowley so overwhelmed and helpless that all he could do was swoon was quite enough to give Aziraphale encouragement to do the same. He did it in Crowley’s ass because there was absolutely no reason not to. He slumped against Crowley’s body and fell out and Crowley hugged him. “_ Good_,” Crowley said, again, to the universe.

“Oh dear, the carpet,” Aziraphale said. “But let’s worry about that in a moment or two, I’m…”

He was drifting, he felt. Crowley was always so warm. “We’ll go to London tomorrow,” Crowley was saying. “Get some carpet. Get some art. _ Look _ at some art, we should investigate the possibilities before we commit.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. What a funny sound his mouth made. Like a kiss that was never delivered. “That does sound like us.”

“Are you going to sleep?” Crowley said, but Aziraphale wasn’t really paying attention.

“Just a little nap, you’re so soft.”

“I’m definitely not soft.”

“You’re fuzzy. Fuzzy all over. A dear little bear.”

Crowley snorted. “I’m an otter, actually. That’s what I’m called. To be exact.”

“I mean you’re very hairy,” Aziraphale said. “I like it so much.”

“Can we go to bed? If you’re going to sleep for once.”

“In a minute, just…”

“You never sleep in the bed, you just read books, and now you’re going to sleep _ on me_.”

“Just one little minute.”

“Oh but the carpet,” Crowley said, mockingly.

“Shhhh.”

“You’re really going to sleep?”

“Shhhh.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was a reason he read books in the bed at night even when he wasn't interested in sleeping. It was because Crowley slept, and it meant something to be next to him when he did. Some of that was about Crowley, and the memory of his face when Aziraphale had told him, at last, that this time he would be there in the morning when he woke up. There was something in that solemn, wide-eyed expression that hurt to understand, something that let him know he had better be serious about what he said here. Crowley had looked like he believed, for a heartbeat, that he would not survive if not. And he would survive, of course he would, Crowley could survive anything, but that moment of belief Aziraphale would not forget. That face would be burned into his heart until the end of time, assuming such an event ever did occur.

The rest of it was about him personally. Specifically it was about the fact that he'd been so conscious of his delay as reason and morality – had allowed himself the comfort that it was about reason and morality only – that he hadn't let himself think about how much of it was fear. And not fear of punishment – that was petty and easy to acknowledge. Fear that if he fell, he would not understand it. There would be nothing there and nothing to catch him.

Crowley slept, Aziraphale felt, because he had a lot going on. That human habit of shutting down for a few hours to untangle it all served a need for him in that particularity, so much so that if he had not discovered sleeping, Aziraphale thought he’d probably still need to sit somewhere and glower at the wall for the equivalent hours. He was active in his sleep too, which seemed to confirm that theory. He moved. He made odd little sounds. He monologued almost exactly as he did when he was awake, if more intermittently and more abstractly. Something about that, about the fact that his bony shoulders would never stay covered and his face would never stop moving, even unconscious, it reminded Aziraphale how much earnestness and energy and absolute intent there had been in his being caught. Because Crowley had caught him. And Crowley did not _ happen _ , he was not ineffable. Crowley was not accident or fate. Crowley was _ will_.

Besides, even asleep it was nice to cuddle him. He was very suggestible in sleep. If he was hugged he’d curl into it. A stroke or two to the hair or back would usually wind him down from anything that seemed unpleasant. If Aziraphale wormed into his arms he’d squeeze and hold him there. Sometimes then Aziraphale did sleep, for the pleasure of it. He had pyjamas for the purpose. They’d kiss goodnight (how well Aziraphale remembered the first time they’d ever done that), then Crowley would go to sleep and Aziraphale usually would not but there was a necessity to his being in bed anyway, and that was why, after a nap as short as promised, they had in fact gone to bed together.

They had also perused the arts papers and left for London after breakfast, in the Bentley. The day was overcast but the coast was no less pretty for it, and they opted to drive down and along it before heading North.

Driving along the coast was a curious kind of thing, because it made Crowley drive sedately – as opposed to manically – in a manner that Aziraphale assumed had to be good for his spiritual health. The sedateness was still very like him, in that he postured at being poured into the seat and only most marginally paying attention, but it was a notable difference nonetheless. He liked to look at the sea, apparently. It had been lovely to discover that, tantalizing and strange that there were still new things about him to know. Perhaps there would always be new things. He seemed in a very good mood overall, really, but that at least wasn’t surprising.

They listened, appropriately, to Handel’s Water Music on the drive. This particular drive had not had time to become tedious, even though they had done it with some regularity since moving south. It was not an especially attractive drive in itself, the landscape being mostly ordinary green farms you couldn’t see much of from the road, but it was a good amount of time to be companionable and quiet. To watch Crowley tapping his hands against the wheel, and to speculate for no reason about people in other cars, to wonder aloud if they might stop for a snack and sometimes have that wondering fulfilled. There was something about a drive like this that felt like stasis – you couldn’t make it faster or more scenic and slower, it was just going to be what it was, an hour and a half on the A23, travelling between points of interest. 

Today, it gave him an odd feeling. He was comfortable with sedateness, with waiting and enforced periods of doing nothing in particular. On the scale of his expansive life, an hour and a half was nothing. A day was nothing, and a retirement that was just beginning hadn’t had time to become anything yet. He was untroubled by all of this when he gave it any reflection and yet in the moment of it, if he didn’t interrogate it, something about it jangled. Nothing pronounced. Just not quite right. _ Odd_.

Similarly, it wasn’t strange to be back in London exactly, but it was clear they didn’t live there anymore. In the short time he’d been in the South Downs, Aziraphale’s sense of home had changed over. Or changed hands, to put it more properly, in that it probably didn’t matter where he was so much as with whom. And in a sense that had always been so, but the extent to which it was formalized now made it that much more noticeable. Once they’d parked the Bentley, they proceeded on foot, and the streets had a concrete foreignness to them that was not to do with unfamiliarity. 

He didn’t know what to do about any of that feeling besides swallow it, so he did just that. They spent a long time looking at carpet. It had never really occurred to Aziraphale to think about how many kinds of carpet there were. He knew what he liked, he assumed, but the only ways in which he’d ever altered a carpet had been by miracle, entirely on feel and instinct (for the _ aesthetic_). He’d never learned any names for carpet types nor thought about it that deeply. And it wasn’t that he thought it didn’t matter exactly, it’s just that it had never come up.

From his analysis, the carpet store seemed to be comprised of three separate sections: flooring materials that were not carpet, flooring materials for use between the floor and the floor material main, and carpet itself. In this regard it seemed odd to call the store “Carpets Carpets”, in that while carpet was certainly present, it was not central enough to warrant a second mention. They moved among the displays of it, touching at this or that. A salesperson asked if they wanted assistance and they said they did not.

The whole time they kept up a conversation about it. It lacked the deliciousness it had had in the South Downs. In the South Downs it had been the spoken equivalent of kissing, but here it felt like exactly what it was – a conversation about carpet. The color of it was a problem. It should be darker, for stains. But a light color was easier to match. It should be a certain thickness. It should have something under it. And so on and so forth into absurdity. And it _ was _ absurd. It was absurd and not at all delightful and then suddenly, the whole affair struck him as unbearably idiotic. The whole place irritated him, everything about it from its artful displays of material that was, after all, _ to go on floors_, to the groups of people milling around aimlessly, to the cheery salespeople in their matching jackets. Crowley himself didn’t irritate him, but Aziraphale shut his eyes against a stab of fear that he might soon.

“We can’t have shag, can we?” Crowley was saying. “That’s too 70s by far, and it would be a nightmare to clean anything out of. Soft though. Imagine rolling around on that.”

Aziraphale tried to smile.

“I wonder if they’ll put it on the floor so we can try it out.” He put on a voice, as if he were talking to an imaginary salesperson: “my good sir, I will not buy a carpet until I have tested its fitness for a fondle.”

Aziraphale tried to smile again and did not meet success the second time either.

“I’m looking for a carpet that is precisely soft enough to fuck on but also somehow repellant to wine stains. And it’s got to _ tone_. Color-wise. Somewhere between my dearly beloved’s books and my… signed original sketch of the Mona Lisa.”

The performance _ was _ charming. Aziraphale should have been able to smile at it. 

“I think they can do that now, actually, make it wine repellant. I think there’s a spray. Or some kind of treatment,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale shut his eyes again.

“Aziraphale? Look at this one. What do you think?”

“Oh, this is stupid,” Aziraphale snapped.

Crowley paused. His eyebrows were up over his glasses and he turned to face Aziraphale in a slow and exaggerated way. Aziraphale didn’t think it was intentional. That was just how Crowley was. Dear, attentive Crowley shopping for carpet for their marital cottage, and even that he did with dramatic movements. 

“I don’t care,” Aziraphale said. “It doesn’t _ matter_. We can miracle the stains away. We can miracle the carpet. This is wasted energy, an absolutely pointless endeavor.” 

“Bit of an… bit of a reaction there,” Crowley said. Dearly, and attentively. Probably.

“Oh, you know,” Aziraphale said. “Who on Earth cares about this, really? Who on Earth could care about carpet as much as a whole store?”

“Don’t think anyone really _ cares_. It’s just a bit of fun. You know, decoration.”

“Well just pick anything then. Pick anything you like, dear, I’m not concerned.”

“Got to go to the bookshop” Crowley said, carefully it looked like. 

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes, we should do that. But just pick something first.”

“It’s no fun if we don’t pick it together. You’re ruining the romance.”

“Of _ carpet_?”

“Of the _ aesthetic_. If you don’t want to do it now we’ll save it for another day.”

“Oh, hang the aesthetic,” Aziraphale said.

He hadn’t really meant that as bitterly as it had come out. Crowley either looked shocked or pretended to look shocked, but it was a theatrical gesture anyway. He pressed a hand to his heart and gaped his mouth. “Treason!” he said, with emotion. “A cruel romantic treason. The aesthetic is _ ours_.”

Whether that emotion was true or false, Aziraphale felt bad about it. Not quite bad enough to apologize, but bad enough to relent. “Alright, alright, let me look again.”

“Do you want to go? We’ve looked enough. It’s not exactly an urgent matter.”

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it, Aziraphale thought. It’s _ not _ urgent. He couldn’t bring himself to say that though. Or say anything. He scowled.

Crowley twisted his mouth. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see Caroline and the books.”

Aziraphale couldn’t be bothered to resist him. “If you say so. Will we get a cab?”

“Let’s walk through the park.”

“Yes, alright, if you want to.”

The overcast, grey nature of things was less beautiful in the park than it had been on the coast. It felt an unfair thing to think, really, because nothing about it was really changed, and one state of weather shouldn’t be good where another was bad. It was just weather. Earth behaved in all kinds of ways, Aziraphale thought, and usually he liked all of them. He supposed it was just his mood. In this kind of mood the barren trees and chilly air seemed symbolic of let-downs and unrequited expectations.

In the park, without asking, Crowley got him a cocoa in a paper cup from the cart and put it into his hands. Aziraphale was going to say something about it, but then he didn’t. He didn’t say anything when Crowley flopped himself onto a bench either, and indicated he was supposed to follow. He did follow. But he got the distinct feeling he was being managed and he wasn’t sure he liked it. The bench too, felt cold. He drew a long breath against it. Crowley wasn’t saying anything either.

He took off the lid off the cocoa. It had little marshmallows. He supposed he could have a sip or two. It was sweet and actually quite restorative.

Crowley seemed to observe that. “Better?”

“There wasn’t anything the matter.”

“Well then better than anything not being the matter.”

“You’re being fussy, and there isn’t any need.”

“There is, because you’re making a sad little face.”

“Oh, I am not.”

“You are.”

“Please.”

Crowley flipped his glasses up into his hair, which was actually quite stunning. Aziraphale was so used to seeing his eyes but he’d already forgotten them. They went very wide and he did a grand, exaggerated pout. “It’s like this,” he said.

It took Aziraphale by surprise enough that he snorted and cocoa splashed back onto his face. He handed the paper cup to Crowley while he took out his handkerchief to clean it off.

Crowley flipped his glasses down again. “Who’s the mucky puppy now?”

“I am, I suppose.”

“_ Mucky puppy_, honestly.”

“It’s just a saying.”

“It’s a _ really _ weird saying.”

“It’s very common!”

“Here, have this back, darling. Have your drink,” Crowley said, in a silly voice, slinging an arm over Aziraphale’s shoulders and gripping the far one with his hand. He pulled him in and kissed him boldly on the side of his face.

Aziraphale giggled. “Stop that!” he said, and Crowley did, which made Aziraphale pout in actuality. “Don’t actually stop!”

Crowley snort-laughed with his whole body. Then kissed him again and leaned back to look at him with the fondest expression. And then kissed him _ again_, and again after that. All of that made Aziraphale feel just the slightest bit smug and he wriggled against Crowley’s body for emphasis. Crowley responded by squeezing his shoulder and that, indeed, was very nice. Aziraphale wondered how it was even possible to be out of sorts about anything. He shut his eyes. “It’s just a lot of bother, just for carpet.”

“We don’t have to get carpet,” Crowley said. “Could just have rugs. I bet there’s hardwood. And if there’s not we can just make it.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s…”

He realized he was drawing it out as if Crowley could answer it for him. But that was impossible. Nobody could answer it because there wasn’t anything to answer. He looked up at Crowley, at his face. “D’you ever just… I suppose maybe it’s not…”

“What?”

“Just get the feeling you should be doing something. Something important. Like a very important appointment that you forgot.”

“You didn’t forget it though, you were there, it just wasn’t anything.”

“Excuse me, what?”

Crowley blinked. Under his sunglasses, but Aziraphale could tell. “The, uh, apocalypse? And not dying?”

“You think that’s why I don’t want to buy carpet?”

“Yeah?” Crowley said. “That’s normal, isn’t it? Post Apocalypse Syndrome or just… retirement blues, or transition… something, I don’t know. I’m just saying, big event, big life change. You know. You feel things. That’s normal. I mean, probably. Whatever normal is in this situation.”

“That’s a very sedate way of looking at it.”

“Is it?”

“Positively healthy.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m just saying that if you think about it logically if you have 6000 years of build-up for the literal end of the world and it sort of went nowhere, you’d probably feel a bit weird about buying carpet.”

Put like that it did actually seem logical. That was marvelous in a way. Something so big and he didn’t even think he was thinking of it. When he tried to put it in tangible terms it seemed not real, or at least very far away from the cool air and grey concrete and this warm arm. The warm arm especially. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m sort of thinking about it on human terms,” Crowley said. “Like a human life. Which I guess is a reasonable approximation of what this is at the moment.”

“Not really.”

“Isn’t it? I mean, the carpet? We could be anywhere in the universe, but we’re here, looking at carpet.”

“Yes, but…”

“In a human life, you’d think about it. They do, you see it all the time. Get to normal finally and but then keep on worrying. I mean, if this is normal. Is it? I don’t know. Feels normal. Or it feels like, even if it isn’t normal then this is probably what normal’s meant to be. D’you…”

“I suppose the point is that it isn’t _ our _ normal.”

“Yeah, maybe. Right?”

“Well, then, why aren’t you weird about it?”

“I am weird about it. I just… don’t really mind.”

Thinking about that had obviously tripped something in Crowley’s head because he went oddly quiet. He appeared to gaze off somewhere, over the park. Aziraphale snuggled into him and felt his arm tighten up reflexively. Like when he was sleeping, Aziraphale thought. How funny. He kissed his neck where it met his collar and that seemed to wake him up. “So yeah,” Crowley said. “Weird. Normal to be weird.” 

“But I’m so happy!” Aziraphale said.

“Everything needs contrast. Can’t have happy without the other stuff. That’s like hot without cold. Or angels without demons.”

Aziraphale had to kiss his neck again for that. Crowley grunted at it, lowered his chin and tightened his arm even more. Another sort of reflexive movement, his body curling appreciatively towards the site of the kiss, and Aziraphale had made him do it.

He didn’t feel smug about it this time. How sweet that was. How sweet Crowley was in every way. “You know, you’re really very clever, dear.”

“Yeah?” Crowley said. “Where have you been?” 

“I meant that that was very clever just now.”

“Nobody ever appreciates my vision,” Crowley said. “Story of my entire life.”

Aziraphale took a second to assess that, but it was funny. Crowley was being dry, not serious. “Yes, and what an awful shame.”

“Make the bloody M25, which just to remind you, became a literal wall of fire right on cue, and it wasn’t good timing but the point is it was a good job, and was anyone impressed? Oh no. No, it was all, oooo but did you take any candy off a child, Crowley? Did you stick your finger in a cake at the church bake sale? Did you do any stupid, pointless, go-nowhere things that we can respect as real, stupid, pointless evil? Philistines, the lot of them. Colloquially, not historically. Pathological under-appreciators.”

“Terrible.”

“And now this. My own lawful blanket.”

“I always thought you were brilliant,” Aziraphale said. “A vile fiend, obviously, but very good at it.”

“You never thought I was a vile fiend.”

“I did.”

“Or if you did you thought it was sexy.”

Aziraphale declined to argue that point. He didn’t need to. Crowley was grinning anyway.

“I suppose it is a kind of weird normal to have a cottage,” Aziraphale said.

“Yeah.”

“The chickens I don’t understand,” he said. “You can’t even look at a duck but you’re fine with chickens.”

“Chickens are different.”

“How?”

“They just are.”

He wasn’t going to get any more answer than that. He might if he pressed. If he asked Crowley to really think it out for him, Crowley probably would. But there wasn’t any need. If Crowley wanted to like chickens but not ducks well then why on Earth not. If he wanted to absently move his thumb up and down own Aziraphale’s shoulder, as he was doing, then he was entitled to that too. Aziraphale took the movement as a cue to squirm into him, to trigger the responsive curl again, and it worked.

“I ought to let Caroline know we’re coming,” he said. “She might be having a party or something.”

“Oh yeah that sounds like Caroline. Throwing a rager.”

“Maybe a guest.”

“Does she have guests?”

“She has friends, surely.”

“What about _ romantic _ guests?”

“I have no idea,” Aziraphale said. “It’s none of our business, really. What makes you so interested?”

“No reason. She’s a nice girl, hope someone appreciates her, that’s all.”

Aziraphale looked up at him again. He really did think that, it seemed. “That’s a very sweet thought.”

“I know,” Crowley said. He made a face. “It was really sweet. I’m really going soft.”

“Oh now,” Aziraphale said. “You’re just fuzzy.”

Crowley made another face. “_ Do _you feel better?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said. “Yes? Perhaps that’s part of it, not knowing.”

“Maybe, sure.”

“But I am happy. I’m so happy.”

“Good.”

“And it does help to… I think you’ve named something, I think you’re correct, and that does… help. Yes. I think it does. Your insight is appreciated.”

“Pleasure,” Crowley said, slightly smugly.

“And I’m in love with you, Crowley, please know that. To be with you in this way is more than I ever dreamed.”

“Right,” Crowley said. But the smugness had dropped off him and he shifted a bit and it let Aziraphale knew that it was too far, too much right now. Aziraphale let it go, but he made a note to say it again later. It shouldn’t be too much to state those kinds of facts. He supposed they both just needed practice. 6000 years of barely saying these things didn’t entirely equip one for suddenly saying a lot of them.

“Bit weird not having a job,” he said.

“A job,” Crowley said, “and a faith in how things are.”

Aziraphale stared at him. His heart felt huge and strained and impossible. His entire body prickled with some sensation he couldn’t name. Crowley must have known because he squeezed his shoulder again.

“Listen,” Crowley said. “I know what you’ve lost. I’ve got. You know. Experience.”

That was quite a lot for Crowley to admit, Aziraphale knew, and he was struck by it. By the information, but also by the fact that Crowley was evidently forcing himself to give it, and for Aziraphale’s sake. What a peculiar thing Crowley was. A painfully loving singular thing. How hard he worked to be good. How horrible that it wasn’t appreciated.

“I have everything I’ll ever need,” Aziraphale said.

“Except direction. Except a goal. Except faith.”

He wouldn’t comment on faith. “Goals like that are the whole problem.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s still weird. And I get it, angel. If you want to be weird about carpet then you can.”

“I’m not really weird about carpet. Just a bit of mood.”

“Well you’re allowed moods, that’s what you get as your booby prize for exile. Moods about whatever you want, whenever you want them.”

Aziraphale shifted out of the snuggle a little so he could raise his head to the right level. So he could look him in the eyes properly and directly. “Crowley,” he said. “It’s first prize.”

“Not what I’m talking about,” Crowley said. “Unfortunate that we’re mutually exclusive, but you didn’t leave heaven for me.”

“No, I didn’t,” Aziraphale said. “I did it because it was the right thing to do. But in some part I knew it was the right thing because loving you couldn’t possibly be wrong.”

“Oh, go on.”

That was obviously sarcastic but Aziraphale took it seriously anyway. Deathly so. He stared at Crowley until Crowley stopped shifting around and looked back at him.

“It could never be wrong to love you,” Aziraphale said. “Because you’re absolutely perfect, and the dearest thing who’s ever lived, and anyone who doesn’t think so is the one who’s wrong. That was a part of it. And I believe that, and there is faith in that.”

Crowley snorted. He made a mocking cluck and turned his face away. Aziraphale put out his free hand and cupped his cheek and guided it back. “It’s important to me that you know. You’re not responsible for my decisions, but you are important to them. Loving you is important to them.”

“Yeah, I know,” Crowley said. He made a face. He scrunched his body up along with it. It looked like he wanted to move around, suddenly, and boldly, and a lot. This speech was too much for him too, it was too much. He wanted to get up and rattle it off.

Aziraphale was about to let him do it. But then he thought he shouldn’t. Then he thought it was important that Crowley understand this with his body as well – that nothing bad was going to happen to him for being loved. So he snuggled against him again. He stroked the front of him. Pet him in a way that, in his sleep, would have calmed him. 

It seemed to work a little bit. Crowley’s limbs relaxed at any rate. Aziraphale leaned up and kissed him, very matter of factly, on the lips, then went back to his cocoa. “Would you like a sip of this?”

“Don’t mean to push it.”

“You didn’t. Here, have a little taste.”

“No thanks.”

“Just a tiny taste, it’s very nice. Thank you very much for thinking of me.”

Crowley took the cup. He watched Aziraphale’s face for a moment, waiting for permission, waiting for something else to happen. Then, he bent his mouth to the rim and took a sip. The trusting, anxious performance of this simple thing bit Aziraphale in the heart. That’s right, dear, he thought, reaching out to pet Crowley’s hair, that’s right.


	3. Chapter 3

Caroline, the girl he had to live in and manage the bookshop, was tall and had freckles and long ginger hair and glasses. And she knew about books – quite a lot about books for someone so young. Among other things, she also knew about memes.

Aziraphale understood memes as examples in a sort of discombobulated internet cartoon but Crowley was very interested in them. Caroline showed them some new ones on her phone over afternoon tea. “Yeehaw,” Crowley said, about them, because cowboys were apparently one of the subjects. “Why is this free real estate guy so fucking funny?”

Besides the thoughtfulness of that, her having saved memes for Crowley, it was very nice to see Caroline so at home pouring tea for them, holding out vegan brownies on a plate (and they were not bad, Aziraphale admitted to himself. But they were not as good as real brownies). She had been very reticent to accept her position of host at first, seeming like someone who might be kicked out at any moment. Aziraphale, even from their first meeting at the Atlantis bookstore open evening, had gotten the impression that life had not been kind to her.

Partly that was because of how she joked. Aziraphale was familiar with people who joked about themselves because they had to.

“How’s the thesis?” he asked her. “Did you find that Levack book?”

Caroline always looked like you’d startled her, even in the middle of a conversation. “Yeah, thanks!” she said, blinking and straightening up. “It’s good, um. There’s definitely some stuff I can use.”

“Very good. Oh and I’ve got a list for you! I was going to email it but then I thought, well I’m here.”

“Sure, that’d be really cool. D’you have anything… the Levack book was great for Scotland but I also need some stuff about England. They, uh, you know. They treated it as different crimes.”

What a clever girl to have noticed that! “You’re right, they did. And yes. I’m so excited to read this, Caroline.”

“Oh you know. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“They’re up,” Aziraphale said. “And they won’t be disappointed.”

“But I…”

“They won’t be,” Aziraphale said, firmly. He smiled to make it clear he wasn’t threatening her. That was an important correction sometimes, with people like Caroline. 

“Well I just… I don’t know about it, Mr. Fell. I just stared at it for hours last night, it’s like it’s not going anywhere.”

“Oh?”

“Eh, it’s just a couple of paragraphs in my intro chapter. Feels like I’ve been ordering and re-ordering them for months.”

“Where is it, I’ll take a look,” Aziraphale said. “Sometimes a thing like this merely needs a second pair of eyes.”

“I was working on it down here last night, I think I had a paper copy. I don’t really wanna show you on the computer, nothing’s organized on there, it’s too annoying, hold on.”

Aziraphale followed her to the desk that in an ordinary store would be the sales desk. There was a laptop on it, a lot of books, and a lot of paper, which Caroline had begun shuffling through. “Can’t… fucking find it, just a…” she said. She scrunched her face up then lifted another pile of books. “Caroliiiine,” she sang.

That little bit of music made Aziraphale smile. “You’re singing!”

“It’s from a song. About a girl called Caroline that the singer… hates. Caroliiiiine, Caroline, you’re the reason for the word witch.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Oh, Caroline.”

“I sing it when I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, and by that logic you should never sing it. You send the chapter to me when you find it, alright? I’m very happy to help.”

Caroline shook her head. “How much time do you have? I’d better show you the ledger now, really. I can email you thesis stuff if you’re really offering.”

“I am.”

“Do you have time to do the ledger and stuff?”

“Yes. We’re going to some sort of art thing later, getting some culture in. Then some supper. Then back home, I think. No real hurry.”

“What’s the art thing?”

“I’m not sure I remember. Crowley?”

Crowley didn’t answer. He was flung onto the near sofa, one leg over the arm, thumbing through Caroline’s phone with laser-focus.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said again, and Crowley looked up like he’d been pricked with a pin.

“Yep, yep?”

“It’s nothing. Just wondering about the art event. What are you doing with Caroline’s phone?”

“Looking at memes.”

Aziraphale smiled. Something about that was so sweet he was drawn over even without thinking about it. He sat down next to him on the sofa and peered over at the phone. “What a funny thing.”

“Yeah, really odd. Good old humans. They just never get bored of coming up with weird stuff.”

“What is it about them you like so much?”

“Humans?” Crowley said, sounding surprised.

“Memes,” Aziraphale said, smiling. “What do you like about memes.”

Crowley paused for a split second, during which he seemed to search Aziraphale’s face. Aziraphale wondered if he did that because he thought he was being made fun of, so he stared back as earnestly as he could until Crowley did start talking. 

“It’s proliferation,” Crowley said. “They spread in fractals or… maybe not exactly, I actually don’t know how to put that, because that isn’t exactly right. But there’s a…” he moved his free hand in the air then. Spread the fingers apart. At first the gesture was for Aziraphale, intended to convey something, but then it seemed to trigger a contemplation of its own and he stared at it. Aziraphale could picture him squinting behind his glasses.

“There’s a…?” he prompted.

“A spread to it,” Crowley said. “And it seems frenetic but it’s actually orderly, because it’ll sort of drop down and” his hand made a claw “_ condense _ a bit of language or a moment of something happening, _ snap_, like that, tight, and then turn on a point and… _ spread_. Something to it. There’s really something to it.”

There was such a delightful spark on Crowley’s face when you asked him about something he found interesting. It was like a drop of phosphorous into pure oxygen the way it burst out and lit up. How wrong it had been to snap at him about the aesthetic, about anything he was interested in or put faith in or liked. Aziraphale couldn’t abide a single thing that threatened that spark, not even a harsh comment of his own made in a bad mood.

He wished he could apologize for it, but he supposed he couldn’t now without making things far, far too serious for either of their tastes.

“Like noise music,” Crowley said. “They’re noise pictures. But they also… tell you things. Like a language code, I don’t know. It’s a bit like computers?”

“Yes, that does sound interesting.”

Caroline was still sorting through things on the desk. The ledger would be there, presumably, and he did need to look at it. It was important to keep up the pretense that he was running a business here, surely. He wondered if she was listening to them. Probably she was. But it didn’t matter, it wasn’t private.

“Here look,” Crowley said. He’d put Caroline’s down and now he touched his own phone in a manner that would look to Caroline like he was waking it up to bring forth something already stored. Aziraphale, however, knew he was plucking the picture out of the internet ether with his demon fingers. “This, here, this is Is This A Pigeon. This is, it’s a bit of Japanese comic or something and the boy’s looking at a butterfly and he’s saying ‘is this a pigeon’, right? So you use this one for… to make a joke about how someone’s wrong about something obvious. You know, you might put ‘Gabriel’ on the boy here and ‘is this following the ineffable plan and not just being a wanker’ on the bottom. Maybe ‘everything Gabriel ever does’ on the butterfly.”

Aziraphale chuckled and Crowley grinned at him. “And this is It’s Free Real Estate, which is like… it’s about taking something that doesn’t belong to you, kind of. Making fun of someone who does that. Let’s say you put a title on it. Assorted Celestials Looking at Humanity, and then a colon, then you put it there.”

Aziraphale felt his mouth popping open. “_ Ohh_.”

“So then you get this,” Crowley said, and showed him another one. “Which… well you can probably read it now. That’s how they work, they’re quick. Have a go.”

“Oh I see,” Aziraphale said. “So the picture is… wait… is it making fun of snakes for thinking that boots… are free real estate? That seems rather...”

“Well no I mean snakes in boots aren’t such a pressing problem for today’s swinging youth so it’s probably about pretending you’re a cowboy saying that because of the cowboy thing but…”

“The cowboy thing?”

“Cowboys are _ trending_,” Crowley said.

“Oh I see. That’s a little bit… meta?”

Crowley made a fond face at him. “Well yeah, but on a basic level you get it. That’s not where a snake should be. In boots. That’s what the basic elements of this… combine as, or form into, or… tell you I ‘spose, and that’s funny on its own, in a way. But probably funnier if you’re thinking to yourself, yeehaw imagine having a cowboy problem.”

“Oh.”

“Get it?”

“Yeehaw,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. Crowley snorted.

“No but I do think I see what you mean,” Aziraphale said. “They sort of of all… mean things. Like a language of their own. In a way.”

“Not always,” Crowley said, “but yeah. Sort of.”

“What’s this one?”

“That’s You Know I Had To Do It To ‘Em. There’s some good Jesus ones off of that, I should show you.”

“What about this one?”

“That’s Loss. We haven’t got time.”

He really sounded like they didn’t, which made Loss, whatever it was about, sound terribly interesting. Aziraphale thought that later he might ask him. “I’ve never minded a snake in boots myself.”

Crowley’s unreconstructed smiles were getting to be Aziraphale’s favorite thing. Crowley slammed it down at the corners when he noticed it, of course he did, he pasted on a measured amount of irony, but Aziraphale had already seen it for what it was. In the first days of the new world he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about this – how artfully, yes, but much more than that how lightly Crowley’s cynicism was wrapped around this genuineness. He liked memes and he liked to be liked, and he couldn’t disguise it, not from Aziraphale. He couldn’t disguise it in his body either. As barbed and angular as he wished he was, when Aziraphale reached out to pet him, he wound around it like ribbon in the air. 

They kissed. He wasn’t sure how exactly. There was an inevitability to it, the same unarguable pull of Crowley’s sweetness and his perpetually warm body and his familiar corporeal smell. The feel of him too. Firm and yet absolutely fluid. He could have done this all day.

Caroline cleared her throat. “Got the ledger.”

Aziraphale didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed. Crowley’s sordid bedroom smirk as he flopped back onto the sofa was too funny for that. He cleared his throat too. “Very good,” he said, fishing out his glasses. “Bring it over.”

Caroline did, then stood awkwardly before him as if waiting to be dismissed. “Sit down, dear,” Aziraphale said. “Bring those brownies over first though.”

Caroline laughed at that, but she obliged, then arranged herself on the nearby armchair. Crowley poured himself over Azirphale’s shoulders and slumped his chin on one of them to observe.

“There’s no sales,” Caroline said. “I did what you said, about the pricing. But you can see I bought some lightbulbs and… um some of those mesh patches and drywall. For the bit next to the stairs.”

“Oh yes, I see. This all seems fine. I probably didn’t need to look at it.”

“There’s an offer on the Flammel.”

“Is there? How much?”

“1200. I kind of feel I should have been out hustling it more. ”

“Oh you mustn’t worry about that,” Aziraphale said. “Just worry about the books. No need to hustle. What do you think?”

“They’re your books.”

“And it’s your job. You’re a very responsible girl, Caroline. I’m interested in your assessment.”

“I mean, you’re right, you can get a better price.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Let’s not then, do you think?”

“You don’t think I should like, negotiate?”

“They’d have offered more if they were serious. I think you can leave it as it is.”

“Mr. Fell,” Caroline said, “can I ask you… I mean I’m not telling you your business, haha _ in _ your business, but um…”

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you actually want to sell _ any _ books? Like at all?”

“No,” Crowley said.

“Well…” Aziraphale said.

“He doesn’t,” Crowley said. “Think of it as… a closet full of books that’s got to pretend it’s a bookshop for some mysterious reason. You really shouldn’t sell anything. He’ll pout.”

“I think,” Aziraphale said, “that if the books are meant to be bought then the right buyers will come. And you mustn’t feel you have to hustle them. You’re busy enough as it is, taking care of the place, writing your thesis.”

“I just feel like I’m not doing enough.”

“That’s because you’re Caroline,” Aziraphale said. “But I assure you, you are.”

Caroline went pink. She’d started to chew on her bottom lip. Aziraphale felt bad for her and tried to think of something to say.

“I keep seeing the frog,” Crowley said, abruptly. Caroline looked at him.

“Don’t like the frog,” Crowley said. “Frog’s not funny.”

“I mean, it’s also fascist,” Caroline said.

“Don’t know about that but it’s definitely not funny.”

“It is. It’s used by the alt-right as a… I guess symbol of solidarity.”

“What’s the alt-right?”

“Nazis.”

“Oh, them again.”

Caroline gave him a crooked smile. And Aziraphale, appreciating Crowley beyond all measure at this moment, stroked his thigh.

“Nazis,” Crowley said, airily. “How last century.”

Caroline laughed. 

“Look,” Crowley said. “It’s just a sad looking cartoon picture of a frog. It hasn’t got legs, it doesn’t _ mean _ anything. Not like Chinese Darth Vader or Free Real Estate, you can use those in a sentence. Then you get something like Loss and it’s like… it’s like a spreading galaxy. All the frog does is see who gets it and who doesn’t.”

“Right,” Caroline said. “That’s right, that’s how they use it. It’s to say, are you one of us, or someone we’re against.”

“That’s not funny. It’s interesting in a way but it’s not funny.”

“But that’s every joke. You could say that about any meme.”

“No you couldn’t, because free real estate guy, that’s funny on its own. You can read that. It _ works_. It’s _ productive_.”

“To you.”

“No, it’s _ funny_. Do Not Want Darth Vader was funny. So what I’m saying is there’s two types of memes.”

“Two types, huh?” Caroline said. She’d leaned forward, smiling. “Okay, hit me with it.”

“It’s basic. Two types, living and dead. In-the-club/not-in-the-club, if that’s all it does it’s dead. If it proliferates, if it’s… increasingly condensing language, it’s alive. Right?”

“Okay,” Caroline said. “I can see your taxonomy. But I think you’re being reductive. In-group/out-group memes aren’t necessarily dead.”

“Yeah they are. If they exist to stop that spreading and not further it, then they’re dead.”

“They’re not always dead,” Caroline said. “Loss is that, in a way. And community memes. I think they can still function like you say they do, it’s just not everything is for everyone.”

“Well then that’s not doing it.”

“No I mean, within communities there can be spread for that community.”

“How?”

“Here well like…” she held out her phone again.

“What’s this?”

“That’s a catgirl meme,” Caroline said. “It’s… we haven’t got time. But you either get them or you don’t, and if you do you’re who they’re for. And if you’re who they’re for then they change and get more complex all the time. They communicate big experiences in simple images. They just might not be for you.”

“Who are they for?”

“Trans people on the internet.”

“Right.”

“Can’t really see you in knee-highs and cat ears.”

“You never know,” Crowley said.

“Knee-highs are so cute,” Caroline said. “I think I’m too old for them though.”

“Nobody’s too old for anything,” Crowley told her, insistently. “If we want to wear knee-highs, we bloody well should.”

“I mean, I don’t think you’re wrong,” Caroline said. “Just maybe reductive. I don’t know. I’ll think about it. I’ll see if I can find you some stuff.”

“Thanks,” Crowley said. “I’ll get you some knee-highs. You deserve a present.”

Caroline actually giggled at that. “Please don’t.”

“I’m gonna.”

“Mr. Fell,” Caroline said, “can you please make your husband not get me knee-highs?”

“I can try,” Aziraphale said. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

Through all of this, Crowley smirked. Aziraphale reached a hand round to pat him on the side of his head.

“Hey what was the art event?” Caroline said, suddenly. She’d just remembered it, probably.

“Oh yes. Crowley?”

“It’s some contemporary thing. We should probably go soon, actually. Starts at five, I don’t want to miss the wine.”

“Where’s it at?” 

“Sadie Coles. There’s a good film bit on at Chisenhale, but we’re shopping and you can’t put a film on a wall.”

“Could project it.”

“Oh yeah,” Crowley said. “Mothlight, something like that. Good idea.”

“We ought to think of a better setup for films actually,” Aziraphale said. “Next project.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Next project.”

“D’you want this last brownie, Mr. Fell.” 

Aziraphale hadn’t realized they’d made it to the last brownie. And really, considering his gangly companions, he’d probably made it there alone. He supposed a vegan brownie was sufficient when that’s all there was, though it still left something to be desired. “Yes, thank you,” he said, and took it. Once it was eaten, he looked at his watch. “Crowley’s right,” he said. “We should be going.”

They unfolded themselves from the sofa and Caroline stood up too, politely, to echo their movements and walk them to the door.

“Caroline,” Aziraphale said, because he remembered it, “I hope you’ve already assumed this, but you do know you’re allowed to have a guest to stay, don’t you? That’s your apartment for the present time, you may do what you like with it.”

Caroline went pink again. She ducked her head. “Uh. Thanks. Thanks Mr. Fell.”

“Think nothing of it. Would you like a little hug?”

Caroline paused. Then she nodded, and she smiled. “Caroliiiiiine,” she sang, and put out her arms with a goofy expression on her face.

Aziraphale hugged her sincerely. “Thank you for taking care of my books. And I will email you. And you be sure that you do as well.”

“I will.”

“And take care.”

“Thank you.”

“And you might try… perhaps a brownie with actual butter in it, just a thought.”

Caroline had started to laugh by this point. Crowley made his long, tilted smile at him. “Time to go, angel.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Well, see you soon.”


	4. Chapter 4

They held hands on the walk to the gallery. That was pleasant to do. The carelessness of it had a sparkly, magical tint to it, especially as the evening had already mostly come on. Under the dusky sky and in little puddles of streetlight it felt as if they were holding hands to dance. The way they moved together was a bit like that, swinging apart, pulling close together.

“You didn’t tell me what kind of art it was,” Aziraphale said. “Do you think I’ll like it?”

“No idea, really,” Crowley said. “Group exhibition, should be good for a laugh if nothing else.”

“It’s clever how you know so much about art. When I think about that, I suppose it doesn’t surprise me that you like those meme things either.”

“Shame,” Crowley said. “I do like to be surprising.”

“Other things about you are surprising.”

“You’re in a better mood,” Crowley said.

“Yes I am,” Aziraphale said, and he smiled at him. “I’m feeling very good indeed about this evening stroll with my dashing lover. I’m feeling very good about the prospect of shopping for art for our marital home.”

“_Dashing_,” Crowley said, and he snorted.

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t love it.”

“Maybe you just needed some brownies.”

“Maybe. Or maybe what I needed was you.”

“Yeah? Well. Glad I could help.”

“I hope I can make it up to you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said. “Is there some nice thing you’d like? Some pleasurable extra thing I can do for you?”

“What, like a sex thing?”

“If you want.”

“Got sex things covered, really,” Crowley said. “If I wanted to do something weird, I’d just ask you.”

“I hope you will.”

“Just glad,” Crowley said. “You know. Glad you’re, you know. Wanting to do the um. Art looking at thing and not. Not wanting to do that.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley.”

Crowley grunted. He swung his arm out so his body was a bit apart from Aziraphale, then back again. He didn’t speak.

“Looking at art is very important,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley still didn’t say anything.

“It’s for the _ aesthetic_,” Aziraphale said.

“Oh, so you do care about it,” Crowley said, _ almost _ as if _ he _ didn’t care.

“With all my heart.”

“Oh,” Crowley said. “Well.” He tightened his hand and swung closer again.

Absurd that that gesture was so powerful, just the tighter skin-on-skin contact of their two mortal hands. He wanted Crowley to fuck him. His heart stung and he wanted it. That obscene, fleshy kind of fucking where Crowley took mouthfuls of his belly and chest, handfuls of his ass before prizing it apart like a peach and getting into it. And, given their kisses in the store he thought he could get him to do it fairly easily.

Though he didn’t know precisely where. And was it right to engineer something like that while out and about? He could of course save it for later, but the idea of having it up against a wall and in a hurry was awfully appealing, and he tried to decide if he ought to push at an experiment like that. He thought about how he’d say it. “Dearest, will you fuck me up against a wall?” would probably, actually, be quite sufficient. 

“Dearest,” he said, chest fluttering and stomach aglow, “dearest…”

“Mmm,” Crowley said.

“D’you think…?”

Crowley smiled, and it twinkled in the lamplight. “Yes, beloved.”

“Could we… would it be completely out of order to just have a quick fuck?”

Perhaps it was the way he said it, but Crowley burst out laughing. “’Scuse me, what?”

“You know,” Aziraphale said. “A quickie.”

“_Where_?”

“Don’t know,” Aziraphale said. “Next alley? If it looks empty enough. I thought… well, if you don’t mind could you…”

“You want to fuck in an alley?”

“Yes. You know, what about fucking me against a wall?”

Crowley couldn’t stop laughing. “What, you mean specifically that?”

“Yes?”

“If you’d like that?”

“I think I would right now.”

“Well sure then, if you want.”

“Just looking for a place. I mean, this’ll do.”

“What, here? Really, in an alley? That’s really what you want to do?”

“Yes, why not?” Aziraphale said, firmly.

Crowley’s face was half-way between incredulous and thrilled. “Well, alright then,” he said. He gripped Aziraphale’s hand hard again, and the thrill of it shot through Aziraphale’s body from bottom to top. His _ hands_. So strong and so capable. When they reached the gap between buildings they ducked into it, clambering over various scattered objects, trash, detritus, abandoned furniture. Nobody was there but it looked like people had been. There were a lot of discarded beer bottles, most of them broken. There’d been a fire in one of the trash cans, though it was long dead now.

“_Filthy_,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. 

“You’re filthy,” Crowley said. “Can’t believe this is your idea of a good time. Fucking in an alley like two people who aren’t married and don’t have their own cottage with a bed and carpet in it.”

“Thought it would be your sort of thing. Outdoor sex, it’s sort of demony.”

“Well, it’s still fucking. And fucking you, specifically.”

“If you don’t want to, dear…”

“No, I want to, I definitely want to. Shit, you’re so…”

“Mmm?” Aziraphale said. He did his sweetest smile, on purpose.

“Slutty,” Crowley said. “You’re just an absolute fucking slut. We could be in the middle of actual Armageddon again and you’d be all, oh should we pop off for a quick one, Crowley? And crepes after?”

Aziraphale refused to change a single thing about his expression but to flutter his eyelashes just slightly and dip his head to one side. “We could have crepes after,” he said.

“_Fuck_,” Crowley said.

“After the art,” Aziraphale added, and that seemed to do it because Crowley moved forward and grabbed Aziraphale around the waist. He squeezed him there and kissed him. Aziraphale sighed into it and kissed back. And then he pushed into him. Pushed his whole body against Crowley’s and felt the kisses become harder.

What absolutely delicious urgency in that. He let himself be crushed by it, against the wall, feeling the flesh of his body impact against the bricks and the fabric of his clothing move between them.

Crowley’s hands had started to travel around him. They untucked his shirt, slid up under it, hot, rough, firm. They stroked and then grabbed at him as if they were trying to pull him apart. And he kept kissing. At Aziraphale’s mouth. At his neck. One of his hands, under the shirt, kneaded at Aziraphale’s chest like a cat. Yes, please do just touch me, Aziraphale wanted to say. More. As much as you want to, as much as you like. Oh, Crowley.

His own hands took a feel too. He tried to reach Crowley’s ass but he couldn’t quite. Perhaps he’d be able to when Crowley at last lifted him off the ground. He lifted up his leg to try to hint at that. Then he internally resolved the issue and climbed Crowley like a tree. Crowley staggered a little, but he caught him. He was strong enough to do that and Aziraphale hadn’t worried, really. He shifted his hands so they were under Aziraphale’s thighs and pushed him back against the wall again, presumably for support.

“No idea how I’m gonna… ha,” he said. “You’ve got… I mean your pants, not sure I can…”

“Well figure it out,” Aziraphale said, bossily. “Just pull them down at the back or something, I’ll help.”

Crowley did his best. He kept one hand under Aziraphale’s thigh and the other snuck around to the back of his trousers. Aziraphale undid his own belt and between the two of them, and some wriggling, they did get them down, and then Crowley’s.

“Oof,” Crowley said, shuffling back into position.

“Not too heavy?”

“Light as a feather.”

“Can you get in?”

“Yep, think so, just… one moment.”

“Got it?”

“Just hold your horses!”

“Well, hurry up!”

“’Scuse me!” Crowley said, laughing, but then he did get it, and he pushed himself right in and so hard Aziraphale was crushed right against the wall again and sparks flew. He let out a loud, shuddering sigh before he could edit himself. How very… how very _ good_.

“Alright?” Crowley said. He was still laughing.

“You clever, clever thing,” Aziraphale said. “Oh that’s… you’ll have to try it, my goodness.”

“Gonna fuck me against a wall sometime, huh?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, you’d like it. You absolutely love getting fucked, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “But.”

“_Oh_. Oh yes. Good. That’s _ very _ nice.”

“Like it?”

“Yes. Oh. Just like that. You’re brilliant.”

“Told you.”

“Oh, I love you. My _ hero_, that’s so _ nice_, Crowley.”

“Nice, yeah?” Crowley said. It was a strange angle but he was really getting in there. Aziraphale could hear the strain of it in his voice. His own arms were wound around his neck.

“You’re breathing so hard.”

“You’re so _ soft_,” Crowley said. “I can’t… _ fucking h…” _

“Alright?”

“It’s just… your body and… I love it. Aziraphale I love it. I love… how you feel and… fuck.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Aziraphale said, melting. He cupped Crowley’s face with his hands. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Crowley looked pained. “No I mean I’m not sure I can… gotta get more practice not just… you know, shooting straight for the… let me just catch my breath or…”

“It’s alright dear, don’t worry, not to… oh, good lord, oh don’t worry.”

“Aziraphale…”

“Let me feel it, darling, … let me… oh, let me have it…”

“_Aziraphale_…”

“Just come in me,” Aziraphale said. “Just _ do it_.”

Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s thighs so tightly Aziraphale yelped from it. And then he did come. He pushed forward and he grunted and he came. He gasped when he did it. He staggered to keep his balance. How sweet, how painfully sweet his managing that, that loss of control with his need to not drop Aziraphale on the ground. Oh _ Crowley_. And he did not drop him. He panted and stumbled again and shoved Aziraphale back into the wall again and let his body fall forward and the crush of it was so harsh and so sudden and heavy and desperate that stars fired behind Aziraphale’s eyes and his body became one hard, hot ball and he whimpered and buried his face into his arms around Crowley’s neck. He didn’t think he could stand it, this _ niceness_, this _ good feeling_, it was absolutely too much, and then Crowley’s body moved again and the rough fabric of Crowley’s waistcoat brushed against him and he came all over it. 

“Did you… did you…?” Crowley said, evidently swimming back to consciousness.

“Just a bit.”

“On me?”

“Where else?”

“Bloody fucking _ gosh_.” Crowley said, still panting. “That was _ disgusting _ in the best possible way.”

“Glad you liked it,” Aziraphale said. “Nice bit of exercise before an event. Seems very sensible, really. Burn off any anxiety.”

“Heh.”

“Let me down,” Aziraphale said. “We’ve got stains. Need to do a little miracle. Oh dear, yes, there’s quite a mess.”

From the street, a policeman had started to see them. They decided not to let him. They were in a hurry as it was, and there was no need to do _ everything _ in a human way. If they could use celestial sleight of hand to fuck and then spruce up, they could certainly use it to avoid making trouble with local authorities. They slipped past him out of the alley and back onto the street and he didn’t see anything there at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You too can read the lovely late Victorian-American novel Aziraphale is reading, because it's actually this fic that my friend writes: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269504/chapters/43233323

The art was, Aziraphale found, indeed good for a laugh. Not a callous laugh, just a laugh of pleasure and acceptance. It was all very new and of the minute. There were not many things that could be put on a wall.

He didn’t feel that was a criticism. It wasn’t that newer, more formalist things left him cold, or any such thing. He liked art when he could understand it, when given an explanation if it wasn’t apparent. He remembered, for example, Mondrian’s paintings going from odd and perhaps arguably a little pointless to entirely remarkable once Crowley had explained them. He’d used a quote from Mondrian to do it, and quite a good one – “I was impressed by the greatness of nature and wished to express: expansion, rest, unity.”

It had been very beautiful, his quoting that in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, just dropping it gently into that quiet space. Aziraphale had stared at him, at Crowley, as if he was hanging stars, as in fact he had once done.

In this little London gallery, looking at strange things and feeling himself falling in love with each of them, he appreciated Crowley’s explanation once more, and more than that, appreciated the understanding of Earth and her people that they’d forged via each other. It was overly romantic, perhaps, to think about their partnership as fashioning two halves into a whole, and it wasn’t true anyway, because nothing and nobody was _ half_, but it was a compelling thought just the same. They weren’t half people but perhaps _ understanding _could only ever be half without conversation and reciprocity. And they certainly had that.

Crowley would say things like that about Mondrian, for example, but he said them because Aziraphale wanted to know. It was Aziraphale who insisted it was important to know who, personally, had made something, and why they had done it. What they were like and what Crowley thought they’d meant to say about themselves, if anything. What was happening in their life at the time. Aziraphale asked those questions because he wanted to examine the specific care a human person had put into their object or their idea.

Books offered that already. They were collections of lives and thoughts by nature, each one the beating heart of a living person and what they had dreamed about, snapshots of times and places, recollecting them entirely personally in the limited perspective of one human gaze. Crowley needed to know about that sometimes. He needed to be handheld into that kind of thing, be told that it was alright to stop, look around, appreciate, digest. To see what was beautiful about _ this _ thing and _ this _ moment, not always be moving forwards. To _ love _ things. 

It was hard for Crowley to be still. Aziraphale knew that. Crowley wanted to know what things could do. And do _ next_. The excitement of that was too intoxicating.

It felt funny to look at art while thinking this much about Crowley’s perspective on it. The pieces seemed to take on a strange kind of energy the more he thought about it. Vibrating almost. Sending out tendrils and drawing him in as he assessed each one on its use-value and connections to other things in terms he thought he almost knew now but did not actually understand. What a strange and remarkable beast he’d married. Even on only one planet, still a cosmic engineer.

He had found himself quite lost in this exercise. So much so that the space had seemed to empty of people and then fill up again when he came back into consciousness in it. Crowley was not next to him, but he was – Aziraphale could tell, more and more precisely he could tell – not far. Aziraphale knew, as he closed his eyes and took a breath, that when he opened them to the world again, he would see Crowley exactly where he was.

And he did. He saw him across the room talking to a young man in black clothes, and who, evidently, was making him laugh. Aziraphale accepted a glass of wine from someone who offered it to him, thanked that person, and watched. He wondered if the conversation was about memes again. He wondered if he should ask Crowley what Loss was or save it as a mystery. He wondered if his own strange studies were as endearing to Crowley as Crowley’s were to him. And then he didn’t wonder that. He already knew they were. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.

This young man was thin in the same way Crowley was thin, but he didn’t move like Crowley. Rather he moved wanly, like a silk scarf in a mild breeze. Louche, if you could say louche about a person who looked so disconsolate, which he did. Deathly pale. Huge sunglasses.

Crowley was louche. He was good at lounging in a manner that seemed vaguely sordid. And if you watched closely, he never really lounged. There was something about him that was always ready to pounce. He made an odd pair with this wafty young man, his dark messy hair and impossibly white skin against Crowley’s spring-loaded red and blackness. Aziraphale considered the option to stay watching them, but he had also finished his glass and that seemed a cue, so he put it down and went over to them. When he did, he knew, Crowley would smile back at him and slide an arm around his waist and their bodies would be touching again as if they’d never been apart. They’d kiss and they’d never stop kissing. They’d twine together like threads making up a rope. His skin sparked from anticipating that, just crossing the room. 

And then all of that froze in him. He had approached smiling, welcomingly, but then he sensed, or smelled, or whatever it was you called that intuition, that this young man with Crowley was not human, and he had to fight to keep the smile on his face. “This is Louis,” Crowley said, as if nothing was wrong. “He’s been amusing me. Louis, this is Aziraphale, who is my better half.”

“Hello,” Aziraphale said. He wrestled his expression back into order and put his hand out. “Equivalent half. He doesn’t need to be made better.”

Louis’ hand was very cold, but he smiled. Crowley smiled too. The smile was hard to read. It looked like he was trying to make it sarcastic but couldn’t quite get there. If so, it was a very sweet expression but it was also very, very normal. Not the face of someone reacting to another nonhuman entity when they were not expecting to meet one. Meeting a supernatural thing in a human venue was not entirely unusual, but it was not exactly usual either, and when it did happen, they tended to pass like ships, not have conversations. Having conversations meant shared business. There shouldn’t be shared business anymore.

Was that the reason for the human pretense? To pass by? Crowley couldn’t possibly believe they’d get away with that. If Louis was heavenly or the opposite, it would mean they were still being observed. Or worse, that something was happening, something that would require attention.

“I’ve never heard that name before,” Louis said. “It sounds biblical but I can’t place it.”

“Know the bible, do you?” Crowley said.

“As well as anyone does.”

What a wicked question for Crowley to ask. Aziraphale wanted to gasp at it. Not because of shock, but because, of all the unbelievably stupid things, that kind of wickedness was so blessedly, impossibly attractive that he felt his body swell forward as if to kiss Crowley on his mouth without his even willing it to. Crowley looked at him as if he knew it too, and he smiled again, and _ you bastard_, Aziraphale wanted to say. He wanted to say it crushed and panting against a wall.

Louis couldn’t tell, he realized. He could tell about Louis, but Louis couldn’t tell about them. There was absolutely no recognition, nothing looking back, in response to Aziraphale’s sensing out. Odd. He hadn’t realized he’d been doing that, but he had been, by instinct, and wherever Louis fit in on the taxonomy of celestial creatures, it was on one of the branches where perception was not sufficiently developed for that.

Fine. Perhaps they would get away with it then. Perhaps Crowley’s _ stupidly attractive daring _ would be nothing but fun and games. “It’s an old family name,” Aziraphale said. “English. Louis, how do you spell that? With a w? Or is it French, I’m afraid my French isn’t very good.”

“It’s French,” Louis said.

“Are you French?” Aziraphale asked him.

“Originally.”

“French and… what is that, your accent? American? What brings you to London?”

“Looking at terrible art,” Louis said. His smile was slight. Biting. “I’m here with… with my better half.”

Aziraphale appreciated that. As wit went, it wasn’t striking, but that wasn’t why Louis had said it. He’d said it to make friends. Lightly and graciously extending himself as he’d done his hand. Very lovely. It _ seemed_, in fact, entirely charming. What Louis seemed to be was a charming young man who happened to be inhuman, and it was entirely likely that that was exactly what he was.

It had to be paranoid, doubting that so intently. More late-for-an-appointment carpet store anxiety, obsessing about the fact that a threat would not seem like a threat until it was one and they were surrounded. Thinking that Louis couldn’t tell about them, yes, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been told. Thinking that there were all kinds of things here on Earth, all creatures great and sinister, and most of them were just here to live but some of them, _ some of them_, were here to insist it die.

Aziraphale wondered how soon he could politely step aside to confer with Crowley on the matter. If only their thousands of years of acquaintance had made them telepathic. They could have had a quick chat in their heads – are you fact-finding or just having a good time? – and solved it in an instant.

What an absurd thought. He’d better not get drunk. He’d pace himself. After the next glass, or possibly the next one after that. He did think he’d like another glass or two at least. If they were going to almost die again he certainly fancied a drink.

He also wanted to know why Louis thought the art was terrible. Surely it meant something for a nonhuman to form an opinion on human art. That was interesting, on the same sort of scale as Crowley and the memes. And again, given the possibility of almost dying, there was no reason not to ask him. So he did.

The look on Louis’ face made him want to clarify. “Genuinely,” he added. “I’m not intending to argue, I’m just interested.”

Louis, Aziraphale thought, was quite beautiful. That was probably a side effect of being whatever he was. Perhaps he was a minor demon of some kind, a seducer, because a look of such pained passion filtered up onto his face and it was wholly entrancing. Pretty. Was that what Crowley had noticed about him too?

“I dislike performance,” Louis said. “I dislike this fetishization of the commercial, as if it were perfectly alright for everything to disintegrate because at least we are getting amusement out of it. Shallow. Shallow depth.”

Aziraphale smiled at him. “What do you like instead?”

“Beauty,” Louis said, and he meant it. “Beauty and a thing well made.”

“You don’t think anything here is well made?”

“I do not,” Louis said. “Plastic and horse glue.”

There was such a primness in Louis’ addendum that Aziraphale began to notice that he was by no means as fluid and shiftable as he had appeared from across the room. From afar, his body had looked accidental, held together by a careless afterthought. Even his expressions had seemed to take extra time bothering to float onto his face and slip off again. But here, this delicate, sudden sharpness. Perhaps he was spring-loaded after all.

He also thought he understood now why Crowley had been laughing. These cutting little statements from someone who had, presumably, absolutely no need to make them, there was something delightful about that. 

“His boyfriend is a writer,” Crowley said, mock-casually. It had the same sort of tone as when he’d asked about Caroline. Attentively gossipy, in that he specifically wanted Aziraphale to know that there was a boyfriend in the picture. “And a musician. They’re doing a book thing.”

“I think it’s research,” Louis said. “He won’t talk about it. Just ‘for the book’. And now we’re here, for some other reason. I haven’t been told that either.”

Aziraphale tried not to be interested in the book. “That seems a little hard on you.”

Louis shrugged. “I wasn’t doing anything else.”

“They’re gentlemen of leisure,” Crowley added.

“Your friend is correct,” Louis said. “Leisure and luxuries. I’m not sure where he’s gone.”

“Out the back for a fag probably.”

“Perhaps,” Louis said. His mouth quirked.

Aziraphale still couldn’t place him. He didn’t know what he was. Though he was beginning to see why Crowley hadn’t raised the alarm. Whatever Louis was really here for, he was distracted from it, which meant it surely couldn’t have been the end of the world. _ Surely _ not. “Are you a writer as well?” Aziraphale asked him, figuring that was the usual question to ask. Louis’ attention flicked back to Aziraphale’s face.

“Oh, not really,” Louis said. “I dabble, but I think not very successfully.”

“I’m sure it’s better than you think it is.”

Louis looked at him. Aziraphale could see him evaluating from behind the glasses. His eyes were bright enough that they were visible. “You are very kind for someone who has just met me and has no idea of what sort of person I am, or writer. Are you always kind?”

How deliberately, charmingly pretentious of him. Crowley burst out laughing again and Aziraphale didn’t blame him. He personally found himself smiling widely and wanting very much to ruffle Louis’ disarrayed hair in praise as one would an endearingly naughty dog. Louis seemed to know it too, because he _ almost_, Aziraphale thought, smiled. Adorable.

“I certainly try to be,” Aziraphale said. “Though sometimes I think not very successfully.”

“Pretty successfully,” Crowley said. 

“Well, _ you _ think so.”

“Yeah, and that’s what matters, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps so.”

“Did you get a drink, darling?” Crowley said. “I’m not drunk enough. Or at all, really.”

“Could be drunker.”

“Let us summon libations,” Crowley said, and theatrically waved his hand in the air so that one of the waiters could see it. When he’d secured them fresh glasses, he put his arm back where it belonged, around Aziraphale’s waist. “Shall we see if we can find your boyfriend?” he asked Louis.

Louis had said nothing during their exchange. He’d only watched. “He’ll come,” he said. He said it as if talking about a weather event. Aziraphale noticed that he didn’t touch his wine.

Aziraphale did touch his wine. It was pleasant on his tongue, even more so with Crowley’s arm around him. Both of these things seemed to work against the unease brought about by this odd little creature, this Louis. He really didn’t seem dangerous. It was absurd to think everything was dangerous. Jumping at apocalypses that were not there.

Perhaps for the sole purpose of adding more information to that evaluation, Louis took this moment to raise his chin and stare across the room. He took a deep breath too, so Crowley and Aziraphale turned to look in the direction of his gaze. The boyfriend had arrived.

The boyfriend was blond. He was young. He was strapping, Aziraphale thought you’d say, probably, strapping in a slim sort of way. He was painfully fashionably dressed too, though in what Aziraphale couldn’t have said – it would be a name, Crowley would know. His denim jacket had that sort of look to it, nipped in waist and sharp edges. His shirt was leopard print. He moved through the room with lithe purpose. When he reached them, he nodded, once, and slung one arm around Louis’ shoulder.

He was not human either. And he also wore sunglasses.

Louis did not shrug the arm off, but he did not really seem to accept it either. Rather, he acted as if the arm wasn’t there. “And where were you?” he asked.

“Talking to one of the artists,” the boyfriend said. He nodded again to acknowledge Crowley and Aziraphale a second time, but that was all he did. His attention was on Louis. “There’s a party later, do you want to go?”

“Do I have a choice in if I go?” Louis said.

“Do you mind, Louis,” the boyfriend said, “not being an insufferable whining shit in response to a simple question?”

The effect of that was explosive. Or it should have been. Aziraphale felt it as explosive and he saw that Crowley did too. But Louis did not react. He may have squared himself just a little, but absolutely no more than that.

“And I asked my own simple question,” he said.

“And in _ public_, Louis. I don’t even know why you agreed to come to London if you were just going to be like this.”

“I didn’t entirely agree,” Louis said.

“You did!”

“I said,” Louis said, “if you’ll recall, that I would consider it. And then you had booked tickets and arranged everything and I could no longer say no despite my feelings.”

“You could have said no. I was being practical but you can still say no.”

“I’m sure you’d have found that unobjectionable.”

“You always do this. You agree to things and then you act like you haven’t and that I’ve _ made you_. It’s some bizarre, torturous game and I wish I knew the reason besides your… _ nature _ . You _ got on the plane_, Louis. You checked into a hotel with me. You got dressed – in _ that _ – and you came with me tonight, you’ve done all of this, and _ why_?”

“If you would please take your arm off me,” Louis said. The boyfriend refused, and Louis did not shirk it. He just stared.

Crowley gave Aziraphale a look. Aziraphale didn’t need to read his mind to agree with it. It suddenly felt very rude to be standing so close to these creatures, who appeared to be skating along the edge of a domestic whatever else they were and were here to do. He was about to suggest they take their leave when the boyfriend shot his gaze at him. Electric, even under the glasses. Almost feral. His eyes were bright too. 

“Who are you?” he said. “Louis, who are your friends?”

“This is the first time I have met them,” Louis said. “It takes a little longer than that to become friends.”

Aziraphale almost laughed again, though it was clear Louis had not intended to diffuse any tension by saying that. No matter anyway. He would do it himself. He put out his hand. “It’s a pleasure. I’m Aziraphale, and this…”

“Anthony J. Crowley,” Crowley said. He shook hands with the boyfriend and it had panache. The boyfriend noticed that. People always did. Even Aziraphale had to look at Crowley again for a second, to appreciate him, before turning his attention back to the task at hand.

“I’m Lestat,” the boyfriend said. Another French name. “I apologize for Louis. He doesn’t mean what he says, he just has no idea of what’s appropriate in a social setting.”

“Please do not speak for me.”

“People like him anyway,” Lestat said. “I like him. Sometimes.”

Louis rolled his eyes dramatically at that and Aziraphale thought he’d better try to stop it from becoming something. “We liked him very much,” he said. “He’s been telling us about your book. Not very many details, I’m afraid. Perhaps you’d favor us by adding some?”

“There are no details,” Lestat said. “There are never _ details_.” He tossed his golden hair boldly, like a teenaged lion. That was very pretty too. Such a pretty couple, really, just wholly beautiful. A bright little haze of beauty and youth.

“My books,” Lestat continued, “as they always are, arrive fully formed when they are ready.”

“They are about his life,” Louis said. “Which for some reason has included coming to London.”

“Yes, in fact it has, _ because Louis_, life is happening here, and _ some of us _want to be a part of it.”

“I would think that part of the nature of biography is that life is happening wherever you are.”

“Yes, _ obviously_, but… oh shut up. Stop embarrassing me in front of our new friends. Say something funny and cynical again, you know that’s what I brought you for.”

“Perhaps if you hadn’t dropped me in a corner to do whatever it is you were doing, I might be in a wittier mood.”

“Oh, so that’s what you’re upset about. That I wasn’t paying attention to you every second.”

“I don’t care if you pay attention to me.”

“You do.”

“I do not.”

The discomfort of this exchange pricked Aziraphale like a thorn. Not his discomfort at observing it, but theirs for being in it. The visible mismatch between what they wanted to say and what they were able to. Louis stayed pointedly still and Lestat moved boldly, but Aziraphale noticed, for all of that grandeur of Lestat’s movements, he also darted his eyes to he and Crowley with some regularity, to check that he was being seen to make them. Almost imperceptibly, but eyes like that were hard not to notice, and Aziraphale was used to looking at eyes.

A little blood swelled up where that thorn had pricked. A bleeding heart, that’s what the saying meant, and now he merely felt bad for them. It didn’t matter what they were, not really. Nobody should be distressed like that.

He tried to get a feel of their fight. An old one, obviously, started long before they’d come to be here. Too many threads to pull right away, but as a tangle he could manage it. He put his hands around it, in his mind. “Have you been to London before?”

“Yes, several times,” Lestat answered. He appeared to want to answer. He appeared grateful to have a buffer. Aziraphale could be one. That was a good start.

“Always for writing?”

“Other things,” Lestat said. “We have some friends here. Had.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, they moved.”

“Very good. To America?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “I would like to hear about your book, if you’d like to talk about it. I own a small bookshop, you could say I have a vested interest, I’m not feigning, you must talk as much as you like.”

As he said this, he smiled as brightly as he could. He watched Lestat’s face and watched it gratefully pick up. How nice to see that. Some people and things blossomed from such small kindnesses.

But then, just as it had opened up, his face shut down again. Defensive. Suspicious. He raked his gaze over both of them again, both Aziraphale and Crowley, back and forth, taking their measure.

“He’s not lying to you,” Crowley said. “He really will be interested. You could tell him about a manila folder of menus you found and he’d be interested if you called it a book.”

“I would not!”

“You would,” Crowley said, “and you know it.”

“Perhaps if they were old, rare menus.”

“Yeah, alright, angel,” Crowley said. And he smiled. And there was such wickedness and delight in it that Aziraphale both wanted to melt against him and slap him on the arm. As it was he just gave him a look, and Crowley squeezed his waist.

Both Lestat and Louis’ eyes had followed that, but Lestat seemed particularly spellbound. So spellbound that he gaped, and then noticed it and had to scrunch up his mouth to get rid of it. There was something of Crowley in that, the quick correction of a genuine expression.

It was followed by another swift dart of the eyes to see if he had been caught doing it. He slumped his body more purposefully against Louis (who more purposefully ignored it). He tossed his hair again. “Well, it’s not menus,” he said. He intended it to be impressive.

Aziraphale kept smiling at him whenever their eyes met. He hoped it would help. 

He didn’t know precisely what it was about their comments that made this small blond being seem to want to tailor his impression so, but he supposed it could be any number of things. Perhaps he was just an uneasy person. Uneasy entity.

“Tell him about your book,” Crowley said, not appearing to notice any of this. “Go on. He’ll just keep asking.”

“I did tell him.”

“You’ve got to give him… well, not details. Give us a scene. Go on. Is this a scene? Are we in one right now, are you going to write this later?”

“Maybe,” Lestat said. “It depends.”

“I could be in a scene,” Crowley said. “I’m not dressed for a book, but you can fix that in post can’t you? Do you make things up? Could you do it just this once? I’d like a more dramatic outfit. Make me look great and I’ll sign the waiver, have you got a waiver?”

“I don’t ask permission. If you don’t want to be written about then don’t talk to me.”

Crowley snorted in appreciation and Lestat grinned at him. A bright and brilliant and captivating grin. An offering of conspiracy. And it worked. Crowley liked it. He gave an approving nod which in turn made Lestat gape a little again, before he slammed it shut.

How curious. That had meant a lot to Lestat, that nod. It was hard not to notice the way Lestat’s eyes followed Crowley’s movements. He watched Crowley’s exaggerated but ironically devil-may-care gestures with that same feral keenness he had used to first acknowledge the two of them at all.

Aziraphale thought he might understand that. Crowley’s movements were a performance that had long since given up on caring about an audience, and as such they were very much a part of the way in which Crowley implied that he _ might _ like you, _ if _ you turned out to be sufficiently interesting to him. People tended to react to that. People tended to give him smiles of the kind Lestat had given and to want them to have an effect. Many, many social occasions throughout extended history had demonstrated this, social occasions that Aziraphale had spent standing next to Crowley or even, drunkenly and without acknowledgement, within the comfort of his arm in this same way.

That was one possibility. The other was that, even if Louis couldn’t tell about them, Lestat could. He couldn’t get much from Lestat, but it wasn’t the same nothing as it had been with Louis. There was something there, it just wasn’t legible. If Lestat could tell, it meant they were fencing now, each carefully playing human to see who among them would falter first.

“Oh, ignore him,” Aziraphale said. “Tell a scene if you want to, but you don’t have to at all. It’s nice to have met you, and your friend, and you are not obligated to talk about anything.” 

“I’m trying to write about if art is useful!” Lestat said.

He seemed stunned he’d said it. His voice had seemed very small, suddenly, too, for such a bold animal. Louis looked at him, just as surprised, and Aziraphale wondered if he had accidentally won a confession.

Just in case, he proceeded gently. “That’s quite a topic,” he said. “Do you think it _ is _ useful? Or is that too simple a way to ask that question, for your book?”

“Yes,” Lestat said. “Obviously. If it wasn’t useful I wouldn’t do it. It’s a stupid question. It’s a stupid thing to write about, that’s why I haven’t done anything. London was supposed to… I don’t know.”

Aziraphale smiled again. “Do you mean useful in one’s life?”

“Yes but I’m trying…” Lestat said. It made him frown, a frown of concentration. “I’m trying…”

After a long enough pause Aziraphale said, “what are you trying, dear?”

He said this very gently too. From the air around them, and from Louis’ face as well, he thought something might be happening that was easily disturbed. He half-regretted that ‘dear’, for a second, because Louis reacted to it. Lestat, however, did not notice.

“It’s impossible to be honest when you write about yourself,” Lestat said. “Of course I make things up. It’s impossible not to. Why wouldn’t I? Who doesn’t?”

Louis made an expression at that, and Aziraphale didn’t know what to make of it. It was part of the fight, certainly, but in what way he wasn’t sure.

“Of course,” he said, lightly, guiding them away from that. “But perhaps you mean that art itself can be honest when we can’t.”

Oh, but there was really and truly something of Crowley in Lestat’s face then. The phosphorous spark. The real excitement. It made Aziraphale melt to see it and it absolutely settled things, too. There couldn’t be any danger from this dear little thing. Whatever Lestat was, he surely couldn’t help it. “That’s it exactly,” he said, and his face made Aziraphale want to pet him.

“You’ll know Oscar Wilde, of course,” Aziraphale said. “The preface to Dorian Gray. ‘We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless’. What do you think of that?”

The quote was a mistake. Perhaps he lacked Crowley’s deftness with them. “Ask Louis,” Lestat said. It sounded bitter. “He reads. I don’t, apparently.”

But Aziraphale recovered that before it could derail again. He picked it up. In his mind, he folded the conversation into his hand, a little origami shape that he held for just a second before opening it out. “A fellow reader!” he said, to Louis, and he put excitement and pleasure into it. And Lestat scoffed, but Aziraphale smiled so much it couldn’t be a hard scoff, and Louis gave a short, dignified nod. 

“I’m reading the loveliest novel,” Aziraphale said. “May I tell you about it? I’m dying to tell someone about it.”

Louis looked surprised. “You may.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “It’s either a ghost story or a love story, or both. It’s a little piece from 1885, set in an American circus, or at least to start with. The author is anonymous, I was lucky to find it.”

“What is the name of it?” Louis asked, and Aziraphale knew he’d been right to do this. They’d return to the topic of Lestat’s book when Louis was defused and Lestat had been allowed to recover himself. Which from the way he moved, he seemed like he was doing. He’d moved off of Louis’ shoulder, but he’d slumped against the wall next to him like a sinister lounge lizard.

“_The Ifrit_,” Aziraphale said. “It’s a good title. But you won’t have heard of it. As I say, I was quite lucky to find it. I have a man who searches for these things for me, and I’m never disappointed.”

“What’s it about?”

“About a circus assistant who is possessed, but that doesn’t really sell it. There’s a tension I don’t quite know how to describe between… well, possession and the practicality of love. And guilt. And society.”

“Like _ Wuthering Heights_,” Louis said.

“I understand why you’d think that,” Aziraphale said, “but no. It’s not a parable. It’s a story within which love is a good thing, just difficult to get to.”

“You could say that about _ Wuthering Heights_, couldn’t you? Possession and society as barriers to love?”

“Could you say that? I’ve always found _ Wuthering Heights _ quite cynical. Love as a sort of delusion, or punishment. I don’t know. Perhaps that’s unfair of me.”

“Yes,” Louis said. “But I see what you mean.”

“You don’t often get to read proper in-love love stories from that time,” Aziraphale said. “Because of societal demands, not just in the books. I suppose they held that all lovers ought to be doomed. Looking that way, things that for a real love would be roadblocks become damning personal metaphors. As if who, or how, we loved commented only on what was most awful about ourselves. And our lack of perhaps… chasteness. That’s what I think, anyway.”

He had really got Louis’ attention with that. That look of passion came over him again, bubbling up as to the surface of a still lake. Lestat was looking at him oddly too. Perhaps this was also part of the fight. Perhaps everything on Earth was and there was no hope trying to hold all of it.

“It’s a very selfish way to look at love,” Aziraphale said. “Cold. This isn’t that. Very precisely, it’s not that.”

“I’d like to read it.”

“I can arrange to have it sent to you when I’m finished. You can read it while you’re in London.”

“That would be a lot of trouble to go to,” Louis said.

“It would be no trouble at all. I’ll make sure it’s returned to me, of course, but you may borrow it while you are travelling.”

“You’ve only just met me.”

“I take a quick level,” Aziraphale said. “You’d be gentle, I know you would.”

Louis seemed quite overcome. He squared his floaty collection of limbs into that prim little stance and he nodded again. Just once.

“Good then,” Aziraphale said. “I must get your details.”

Crowley, Aziraphale noticed, had not said anything for a while. He looked at him, just to check, and Crowley looked back. He had a strange expression on his face. There was fondness in it, but something else as well. “Do you want another drink, angel?” he said. “A canapé?”

“Yes please,” Aziraphale said. “What have I done to deserve this attentiveness?”

Crowley only grunted. He made a dear little shrug and put his arm out for a waiter. He got more wine and a napkin of things that, instead of passing to Aziraphale, he held flat on his palm so Aziraphale could pick snacks off it. It was gallant. It was charming. However it also meant he couldn’t put his arm back around Aziraphale’s waist, and when Aziraphale noticed that absence he almost complained. Then he didn’t. Then, he was filled up by the fact that there were just too many nice things to choose from, too many to have all of them at once, and he laughed. Crowley smirked at him and pecked his cheek.

Evidently, Lestat was observant. “Oh look, you’re really in love!” he said. “How wonderful!”

It sounded pleasant enough on the surface but there was absolutely something under it. Just like when Louis had asked about the party. Aziraphale couldn’t tell whether he should wait to see the whole shape of it or get in front of it before it emerged, but his mouth was full of canapé and he was not fast enough to decide.

“Louis, don’t you think it’s nice that they are in love?” Lestat said.

“Very nice,” Louis said, without much emphasis.

“Are you newlyweds? You have that look.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged glances. “A light time has yet to dim,” Crowley said.

Crowley was either slightly drunk or just being poetic. Aziraphale kissed his cheek for it anyway. It made Crowley duck his chin and smile. He might, Aziraphale thought, even have gone a little pink. How _ adorable_. How incredibly sweet that was, how impossible, how _ darling_. Not kissing him on the mouth and pressing his body into him then was a narrow miss, because _ honestly_. The pinkness reminded him, viscerally, in a hot flash from low in his stomach, of the way Crowley’s face had gone pink pushing him against the wall.

He put a canapé in his mouth to manage it. Pay attention, he told himself, sternly. You are in public and there is still a pressing supernatural issue. You haven’t even finished the canapés.

And then Lestat helped him pay attention by being horrible. “Isn’t it _ nice _ , Louis,” he said, “that some people in love can touch each other without it being a fucking _ drama_?”

Oh dear, Aziraphale thought. He exchanged glances with Crowley again but of an entirely different nature. He tried to brush the canapé crumbs off and put his hands around the conversational arrangement again but he was not fast enough for that either. There was a pace and an undertow to this that required his absolute full focus, and he couldn’t quite summon it, for whatever reason, possibly to do with wine.

“What would be nicer, _ Lestat _,” Louis said, “is if you would not try to initiate this sort of conversation before an audience. I do not enjoy it, and I don’t understand why you do.”

“I don’t _ enjoy _ it,” Lestat said. “I just can’t _ help _ it.”

Louis shook his head. “You could, you simply aren’t. All you are required to do is to… not.”

“_ You _ could not.”

“Would you like to give me your address for the book?” Aziraphale asked, and it did make them both stop, thankfully. He gave Louis his phone and let him type into it.

The moment he handed it back, Crowley, having presumably pocketed the empty napkin, put his arm around Aziraphale’s waist again and ushered him off. “’Scuse us a minute,” he said, gruffly.

He led him against a quiet patch of wall. “Right, what’s going on?” he said, exactly as soon as there was space around them.

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asked.

“So,” Crowley said. He said it quite conversationally despite having made a dramatic exit to say it. “They’re not human.”

“No,” Aziraphale agreed. “They definitely are not.”

“Think you should have let him touch your phone?”

“Yes, well, that was a tactic,” Aziraphale said. “And it’s alright, isn’t it? You thought they were fine.”

“I didn’t know what to think, actually, but…”

“Well what _ do _ you think? Because I was following your lead there. They’re just creatures, aren’t they?”

Crowley shook his head. “My lead. I was feeling them out, angel. I wasn’t making friends on purpose.”

“You were laughing at his jokes!”

“Well, they were funny!”

That response was slightly funny too, and they both realized it. They looked at each other. They smiled. It was like taking a deep breath. Their hands met and they held them.

“Can you tell what they are?” Aziraphale said.

“Don’t know. Not our lot, I can tell that.”

“Well, what then? Do you think something’s going on?”

“Maybe? I’m getting nothing. Can’t feel anything at all, besides that they’re not right. They’ve got fangs, did you notice that? Maybe just a couple of those weird hybrids.”

“Well, it did concern me a little bit. But then I thought perhaps it was just the… carpet apocalypse. Apocalypse carpet. You know. The thing you said.”

“Are you drunk?”

Aziraphale scoffed. “I’m tipsy at most, but you were still right about…”

“You slutty little lush,” Crowley said. He grinned. He let go of Aziraphale’s hands and curled his fingers under his lapels. “Slutty for sex, slutty for drink. You’re even slutty for brownies.”

Aziraphale did his best to ignore that, but his best wasn’t very good. He knew he was swooning a little. “Only with butter.”

“And you’re tiddled.”

“Is it serious enough for us to get untiddled?”

“Dunno.”

“Do you think so?”

“Do you?”

“Do you know what, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said. “Balancing the… carpet apocalypse against my _ mild _ intoxication I don’t know if I trust any of my instincts at all, quite frankly. Perhaps you’re right about the phone. I don’t _ know_, Crowley.”

Crowley’s face did something strange. It folded up a little. He frowned. He ruminated. Then, he darted out his hand like he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He settled on fluffing and then brushing down Aziraphale’s hair at the side, but it looked like he’d wanted to do more than that. Or just something else.

Crowley had wanted to touch his cheek, Aziraphale realized. He’d wanted to touch his cheek and stroke it in a sort of comforting way, and that quick little movement was as close as he could get to it because of who he’d worked out to be and how much effort that was to push against. The realization was so stunning and hurt so much that Aziraphale momentarily lost his place.

“We can get untiddled if we need to,” Crowley said. “And you’ve got his address now if there’s something, that’s probably relevant, somehow. Some other worldly entity’s London address.”

“Is it?”

“We can handle things.”

Oh, _ Crowley_. I know we can, dearest, Aziraphale wanted to say. I know you’ll protect me from anything. We’ll protect each other. But he didn’t think Crowley would have liked him to point out how obviously tender he, Crowley, had accidentally been.

“They seem a bit…” he said, instead.

“Dysfunctional? Barking mad? Fundamentally unstable?”

“Well, I would have said distressed but alright.”

Crowley made a lopsided, indulgent smile at that. Fond. He ran his fingers up and down Aziraphale’s lapels again. For a moment it seemed like he was about to act more firmly on it, perhaps jerking Aziraphale forward by them, perhaps pushing him back into the wall. He licked his lips, a darting movement more snake than man. 

Aziraphale absolutely refused to feel anything about that. There were things to do and he _would not do it_. His lips parted and his body opened, but he was not going to do it, not even if his knees buckled and he began to sigh and fall without warning. He would _not_. He would not fall forward into Crowley’s arms like some sort of… slutty damsel.

Crowley didn’t do anything like that anyway. Or even apparently register that Aziraphale thought he might. He ruminated a little more. Made a clicking sound. Looked back into Aziraphale’s face like he was trying to get answers from it. “Right then,” he said.

“Right, what?”

“Ask them for dinner,” he said. “Go on. Be a lark.”

It wasn’t disappointing, exactly. More sort of sobering.


	6. Chapter 6

“We know you’re not going to eat anything,” Crowley said, conversationally once again, pouring wine into a glass. “Or drink anything, but that’s fine, more for us.”

They had been seated without incident. The invitation had been easy to make and why shouldn’t they bring them to their date restaurant? In terms of Handling Things, it did seem sensible to broach things with them on what might reasonably be called home turf. These supernatural youths, to their credit, had not batted an eye at being asked to or escorted to the Ritz. As if they got invitations like that all the time. Gentlemen of leisure, Crowley had explained, and so it seemed to be. They were curiously at home here.

That was quite endearing. As human bodies, they looked awfully young to be this comfortably pretentious. Or perhaps exactly the right age, too young for shame to set in.

How different that was to Caroline, when she’d been to dinner with them. Caroline, only a scant few years older in apparent age, had worn a shapeless green dress and heels and lipstick she kept chewing off. She looked around continuously. She apologized a lot. They had told her not to. They had supplied her with cocktails until she giggled and then they had sent her home in a cab with a little bit of extra money in her purse.

It seemed talismanic to think of Caroline. To think of a human being, and what was so precisely good about human beings.

“Well, yes, it’s rather late in the day for…” Louis had started to say. He knew something now, Aziraphale knew that. His manner had changed to make that obvious. If he hadn’t been able to tell before, he could now. Or Lestat could tell, and had told him. This little bit of hedging was interesting to watch in that even now he knew he thought it was sensible to pretend humanity. Lestat wasn’t sure about that, that was obvious too. He kept darting looks at Louis, and then back to them, his body arranged in artfully false relaxation. 

“I think you know that’s not what he means,” Aziraphale said, softly, and both of them stopped.

It really was striking how bright their eyes were, even under those glasses. They didn’t seem afraid, really, just startlingly _ aware_, like two little animals caught in the headlights. Still, it was better to put it to rest immediately. “You mustn’t worry,” Aziraphale told them. “We can tell because we’re not human either.”

Lestat looked straight at him. “I know that. But you’re not vampires. So what are you?”

“Is that what you are? Vampires?”

“You said you could tell.”

“Just the general area, dear. Not specifics. It’s an imperfect instrument, as you see. It requires… familiarity to work well.”

“Right,” Lestat said. “Right well. I suppose it’s the same because I’ve just got… Not Vampire.”

“I’ve just got Not Human,” Aziraphale said. They smiled at each other. It seemed that irritated Louis. He picked up his wineglass as if he intended to shotgun it, then realized he couldn’t and so put it down.

“Oh, is that all?” Crowley said. “Just vampires? Don’t know how I missed that. Must be getting rusty, imagining all kinds of things and it’s just a couple of Draculas.”

“Dracula is a fiction,” Louis told him, firmly. His voice stayed quiet, but there was offence in it. “There are not any vampires like Dracula.”

“I’ve heard of vampires before, darling,” Crowley said. “You meet all kinds in my line of work. There are some vampires like Dracula.”

“And what work is that?” Louis said. He pointedly ignored Crowley’s calling him darling with such an odd propriety that Aziraphale found it genuinely charming. All that wafting about was defensive. There was clearly a backbone of steel under it. No wonder Crowley had been so instantly amused by him, whatever he said about just feeling them out. He had _ liked _ this forthright little creature. And Lestat. Crowley had liked him too.

Crowley continued to be amused. “Sort of a… contractor for Hell. If Hell had contract work and not just… violent obligations. Retired, but.”

“And what is that a metaphor for?”

“It’s not a metaphor for anything. Retired, you know what that means, contractor… you might not know that one actually but you’ve probably hired one. And Hell. You’ve heard of Hell. Lake of fire, eternal torment, all of that. Well, there’s not actually a lake of fire but…”

“Excuse me?”

“… there is _ definitely _eternal torment.”

“Excuse me,” Louis said again. He said it to interrupt.

“Yeah?” Crowley said.

“Your premise is that Hell is a real place and you have… worked there?”

“Uh, yeah?” Crowley said.

“And Heaven?”

“Obviously. Worked there for a while too.”

“So you’re…”

“Demon,” Crowley said, pointing to himself with his thumb. “That’s the vibe you’re picking up. Or, you’re not, but your boyfriend is. As in fallen angel. Spawn of Hell. Well, not spawn. Hell bound émigré.”

“_What?” _

“Retired now though. Ish. I might still do something evil if you make me annoyed enough.”

“That’s patently absurd.”

“Is it?”

“Shut _ up_, Louis,” Lestat hissed, but Louis ignored him.

“Do you sincerely expect us to believe that?” Louis said, in his same upright tone. “I believe you are something, but I don’t believe that. I’d prefer if you would be direct with us, please.”

Lestat glared at him and Louis glared back. It was a laden exchange, like they’d already argued about it, about this exact thing, about if Crowley was a demon or not, if Hell were real or not, if being asked to the Ritz was going to involve theology. Odd things to have argued about. And how would they even know to argue about them? Aziraphale wanted to ask questions of his own now – what is a vampire exactly? Precisely how much and in what way can you sense?

Crowley was struck by that too, evidently, because he grinned. “You’re vampires, what’s so odd about a demon?”

Louis stared at him as if he were dense. “Because I would not find out the truth of Hell now, under these circumstances, as if in some absurd, cosmic play of manners. I don’t believe it. This is some trick and I am not fool enough for it.”

Crowley didn’t answer. He leaned on his hand like he didn’t care about it at all. Then, nonchalantly, with the hand holding his wine glass, he lowered his glasses so they could see his eyes. He waited for them to register that. They did register it.

When the moment had landed to his satisfaction, just as nonchalantly, he sighed as if he were pretending to be supremely disappointed and then, in a flick, showed them his face. His real face.

Aziraphale knew it wasn’t just the face that sold it. It was the air around the face. The way reality warped to let it through. The same way the entire fabric of the Earth and her atmosphere shifted to accommodate their wings when they put them out.

The vampires somehow managed to contain their reaction to that well enough to avoid drawing the attention of the entire restaurant, but it looked like a close call. Chairs had been pushed back and a few things knocked over. To be on the safe side, Aziraphale shifted a little barrier out. Nothing hard. Just a little suggestion that nobody should look or come over to their table.

And yet the vampires still weren’t afraid. Stunned, yes. Sitting up entirely straight, wide-eyed and paying attention, but not at all fearful. In fact, after a minute, Lestat elbowed Louis in the ribs and said, “I told you.”

Louis didn’t say anything, but he looked resentful. He made a face that indicated the elbow had hurt. “And who are you?” he asked.

“I didn’t fall,” Aziraphale said. Then after a second or two he added, “exactly.”

Louis’ expression broke Aziraphale’s heart. He looked desperate, as neatly squared as he was, and Aziraphale ached to set him to rights as gently as possible. He thought perhaps he could miracle them both clean of this entire experience, but it might not work. He had no idea about vampires and what would happen if he tried that. Were they actually demonic or just wholly Other? He’d never bothered to learn the ins and outs of this kind of thing. Crowley would know, but he would hate to ask that in front of them, and he would hate to botch that kind of experiment. 

As it was he just looked at Louis as sympathetically as he could. Then, for a second, he let his real face shimmer there too. It hurt to do it. Mostly because he didn’t doubt it would be convincing, and it was. Louis looked stricken. His eyes gleamed. He looked as if he might start shouting any second, or else crying.

“My dear, it’s alright,” Aziraphale said. He slid a little angelic force under his voice, warm and intentional, loosening Louis from imminent implosion. He’d have preferred to have touched him, but he didn’t have that option. Instead, reality tucked itself respectfully around his words and it worked enough, which was lucky. Doubly lucky in that Louis didn’t notice that anything had happened.

Well. It worked in that it made him stop seeming about to shout, but it didn’t stop anything in the way of hurt and incredulity. Aziraphale would have forced a little more, but it didn’t seem right to do that. It didn’t feel right at all. Louis would have resented that deeply, that was very obvious about him.

“And you are…” Louis said, “I beg your pardon… you are an angel and a demon and you are married and visiting galleries and _ eating at the Ritz_?”

“Earlier we were picking carpet,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale almost laughed at that, but he forced himself not to. To laugh now would have been cruelty. Then he looked over at Lestat and the laughter curdled anyway. Lestat wasn’t saying anything. He was just staring. Staring at them in open-mouthed wonder. He was, Aziraphale thought, possibly about to enter rapture and something urgently needed to be done about that too.

He had no idea what it was. He tried to feel the shape of things, to untangle them. Like the fight, it was difficult to fully get hold of. 

Crowley appeared unconcerned by any of it. Perhaps even slightly annoyed. He certainly took the sort of drink he took when he was annoyed. “I mean, look, I get it,” he said. “I understand you need to take a minute with this information, but you know, think about it. It’s not _ that _ important. Hell’s real, so is Heaven, but they’re not _ that _ interesting. Can you think of somewhere better to be than right here?”

Lestat’s stare now focused on Crowley again. He looked like he was gazing upon a vision. He looked, in fact, like Aziraphale thought he himself must look when staring at Crowley sometimes. Understandable.

“But is god real?” Lestat asked, and the absolute earnestness in it made Crowley have to answer.

“Yeah, look,” Crowley said, and took another drink. “Look…”

Lestat looked to Aziraphale. He asked the question again by staring.

“Yes, dear,” Aziraphale told him.

Lestat’s reaction was not the same as Louis’. “I _ told _ you,” he said, to Louis, triumphantly, and they had really argued about this, that was obvious. This exact specific thing, if god was real and if it was possible to meet her emissaries in a restaurant. Were there other angel/demon duos out there that Aziraphale didn’t know about? Absurd.

“That means of course that we are truly damned,” Louis said. “And that, I told _ you_.”

“It doesn’t _ mean that_, Louis, you’re not _ thinking_, would you just…”

“It’s not so bad when you get used to it,” Crowley said. It made Aziraphale wonder how often he used that joke. It also made Louis more furious and Lestat more stupefied.

“Dear,” Aziraphale said. “I think you need to allow a little for the gravity of the situation.”

“What’s so grave about it? It’s nice here, isn’t it?”

“Dear.” 

“It is.”

“_Dear_.”

“Just saying it’s nice is all.”

“Of course it is, but they’re upset,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley grunted. It was a grunt of great restraint. And it was followed by half a glass of wine in one go, which was then in turn followed by his filling his glass up again and then downing that. 

_ I am weird about it_, Aziraphale remembered him saying in the park. Perhaps he was. Perhaps Crowley hadn’t known how to say how, precisely, he was weird about it, but now Aziraphale thought he knew: it was easier for Crowley to be on alert. He had been put on alert at the gallery and he had almost _ enjoyed _ throwing himself into the subterfuge of it, in his manic, calculating way. And now, having been abruptly wound down without any warning, he was forced to scrape himself together again and have a dinner date. That was tiring. It was a little bit vulnerable. He didn’t want to be nice to people or things who were getting altogether too personal with him.

It wasn’t their fault, of course. How could they possibly know what was personal. Still.

“What’s _ grave _ about it, monsieur Crowley,” Louis interrupted, “is what it implies about the nature of the universe, and you will forgive me if I find that a little hard to digest.”

“Oh, it’s distasteful, is it?”

“Yes it is, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, sorry to be so disappointing.”

“Your apology means very little to me.”

Aziraphale didn’t need to chastise Crowley but he probably did need to stop him, if only to stop him from provoking Louis. A sympathetic look was evidently not enough, so he slipped a hand onto his thigh under the table and stroked there. He could feel Crowley shutting his eyes and taking a breath. Then he felt him sliding a hand over his and holding there briefly before letting go. Visceral thrill of memory at that, but it was softer, sweeter than it was lustful. It was a memory of closeness more than anything. Crowley had gripped him for strength, he thought. The poor grouchy thing. Aziraphale wanted to put him to bed.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” Lestat said, suddenly, and everybody looked at him. “For thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

His face still had that same rapt, awed expression, and it made Aziraphale want to tread gently. “That’s the bible, isn’t it? Hebrews 13:2 if I’m not mistaken. It really has a quote for everything.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Or the wrong way to say it. Lestat’s face didn’t fall exactly, but it did twist into a kind of confused, defensive expression that even apparently managed to make Louis concerned about him. Aziraphale took note of that. If it hadn’t already been obvious that their antagonism had a deeper foundation, this would have proven it, this small moment of Louis just about putting a hand out to defend Lestat’s body against the world.

“Of course it’s the bible,” Lestat said, not seeming to notice Louis.

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “Oh dear, this could not really have gone worse, could it? I really do apologize. We thought… well I don’t know, I’m not sure what we thought.”

“Whole lot of dunno as I recall,” Crowley said.

“I think perhaps,” Aziraphale said, “that the evening is salvageable if we will just all allow each other to reset. I do wish you could have a drink, but I suppose you can’t, can you?”

“We drink blood,” Louis said. “Human blood out of living bodies until they die. I want to know what part of god’s design that is.”

Aziraphale tried to focus on the practical. “Is there a way, perhaps, that you could have a small amount of human blood without harming anyone and we could continue talking? If it would help you?”

Even Crowley stared at him like he was stupid for that one. “Alright,” Aziraphale said. “So you can’t do that. But let us all at least take a breath.”

Lestat evidently did not need a breath. “You would really rather be here?” he blurted. It was equal parts awe and incredulity. “Really? Than Heaven?”

Aziraphale had no idea what to say to that. Every single possible answer opened up an unending series of others, and he did not want to give any of them. He had no idea how much of not wanting to answer was out of intent to be generous to their dinner guests, to spare them anything actually terrifying, but he suspected quite a lot of it wasn’t. Quite a lot of it, he suspected, was about just not wanting to fucking talk about it.

Crowley caught him. Took his hand under the table again. Held it tight. “Did you miss the bit about being a demon?”

“No,” Lestat said, “just… would you… do you earnestly… like it here? On Earth, on the worldly plane?”

“Yes,” Crowley said. He sighed.

“But _ how_?”

“What do you mean how?”

“Aren’t there better things?”

“Don’t know about better,” Crowley said. “Different, sure. But you’ve got to. Appreciate things.”

“_How _ do you appreciate things?”

“I don’t know, you just look at them. Are you honestly telling me you don’t know how to like things?”

“No but… forever.”

Crowley gave him a look. It started out annoyed, and it stayed having annoyed as buffer, but ultimately it wasn’t annoyed at all. It was sorry. 

“That a bit difficult for you, is it?” he said.

Lestat didn’t answer that, but his chin went up.

“What is it then?” Louis demanded. “What is this? Are we damned or aren’t we? Is this evil? Is there a way to be what we are and be good, or is the test that we remove ourselves before too much harm is done?” 

“Oh my dear child,” Aziraphale said. “Oh dear. No.”

“You must have answers.”

“Not to questions like that.”

“But I am to know that god is truly real, and wants something, wants something of _ me _ , specifically, in _ this state_, but I am never to know what it is. You cannot ask me not to do everything in my power to find out what it is.”

That was almost unbearable. Personally, and also because he knew how Crowley would take it. Crowley didn’t even seem to be paying attention. He _ seemed _ as if he were drinking and looking around, as if he were not even really there. But Aziraphale knew he was there. He knew he was _ right _there. 

“Louis, dear,” he said, gently, and he saw Louis shake that off. He didn’t like to be called dear or even called his name by an almost stranger. But Aziraphale would not apologize. “Please listen to me. That’s not a way you can live.”

“I am not alive,” Louis said, bitterly. “I haven’t been alive for two hundred years.”

“You have books you want to read, Louis, and opinions about art. That is certainly alive enough. And you can’t live that way, thinking that way about god. You will have to trust me on that.”

“You will have to give me considerably more information for me to trust anything you say,” Louis said.

“There’s nothing I could tell you that would be the answer you want.”

“Tell me what god wants!” Louis said.

“Nobody knows.”

“You’re an _ angel_.”

“Yes, and here I am, on Earth, living in sin with a demon. Whatever god wants, I…” He faltered. Crowley gripped his hand again.

“I don’t know what god wants,” Aziraphale said, trying again. “But whatever it is, I… we… we don’t think it’s the same as good and evil.”

Louis leaned forward onto his hand in what looked like exasperated despair, and now it was Lestat’s turn to reflexively fuss. Louis shrugged him off, but then looked sorry about it. “Is this what you wanted?” he said to Lestat, and it sounded very mean but Aziraphale could tell from both of their reactions that it was allowed meanness. It was allowed enough that it made Lestat defensive of him, and then that was allowed too. They were lovers, after all. Under all he’d seen of them, they were still lovers.

“You’re not living in sin,” Crowley said. “We’re legally married.”

“Well yes, but that didn’t make the point as well.”

“Still,” Crowley said. “Should have the facts.”

“Quite right.”

“What if we tell everyone who and where you are?” Lestat said. They looked back at him. His arm was around Louis’ chair and he was glaring.

“I doubt you’ll be able to, dear,” Aziraphale said. “You can try, perhaps it will be different for you, and you’ll be able to retain the information, but who would believe you.”

“I think you underestimate my acquaintances,” Lestat said, stroppily.

Aziraphale just smiled at him. And how odd, but that simple smile did seem to knock the threat out of him, even if not making him at all happier. Perhaps he’d underestimated his power over these creatures. It truly didn’t feel as if he was using any. Just that one little bit with Louis earlier, and even that he thought he shouldn’t have.

He had a glass in his hand somehow. He hadn’t noticed it getting there. Crowley had done it, presumably, had put it there without needing to check. There was such _ comfort _ in that. The same way he’d gotten him that cocoa in the park or the napkin of canapés. And their menus were gone, had Crowley ordered for them too? Aziraphale hoped he had. That practical matter of ordering food in a restaurant, he wanted it taken care of for him because he was out of his depth here, falling through air with no idea where to land. It was too much to ask of Crowley, it was, expecting him to just manage things for him, secure him something to eat under these circumstances, but he wanted it so desperately.

Then Crowley looked at him and he knew it wasn’t too much at all. Crowley had done it as naturally as breathing. But it was not inevitable that he had. It wasn’t fate. It was _ will_. 

For a moment, Crowley’s face was the only thing in the world. _ We can handle things_, he had said. And they could. Anything. 

Crowley had put his arm around Aziraphale’s chair, the way he’d done on the bench. The way Lestat was doing with Louis. They seemed to be conferring, those two. Their heads were together, their pretty little youthful heads. Aziraphale let them do that. His wine was white, and cold, he could concentrate on it. They still hadn’t talked about Lestat’s book, not really. Aziraphale wanted to. There had to be _something_ he could do that wasn’t just ruining their evening.

It seemed the vampires had decided what it was to be. “We would like to ask you some more questions,” Lestat said, and Louis nodded. Two little animals, staring at them.

Aziraphale looked at Crowley again. He wasn’t sure which one of them sighed first, but they both did it. “We’ll do our best, dear,” he said.


	7. Chapter 7

“No,” Crowley said, almost as soon as the drink had worn off and they’d got in the car.

They didn’t need to drive carefully. They didn’t even need to experience rain. But they did, because that’s what everyone else on the A23 was doing.

“We have to do something,” Aziraphale said.

“We don’t,” Crowley said. Or growled, there was definitely the edge of a growl in it.

“We do,” Aziraphale said. “What an awful situation. A human brain, a human spirit in one of those horrible immortal bodies. It’s so cruel. And they’re so young.”

“Not really. Two hundred years or something. That’s old for them, humans. They wouldn’t live that long in their regular bodies.”

“I know, Crowley. That’s the point. And you know they’re not really anything like that age, really. They’re twenty-somethings. They’re _ children_. They need… well, I don’t know. Something.”

“Celestial guidance,” Crowley drawled, lispily. “You can do it if you like, angel. I’m retired now. I don’t do anything.”

“I know you want to help. I know you’re interested.”

“I’m definitely not interested.”

“You are. And you wouldn’t leave me to do it by myself, I know you wouldn’t be that heartless.”

He waited for Crowley to say something about the bald-faced manipulation of that, but he didn’t. He never did, actually. Perhaps, as a professional tempter, it was beneath him. Alternately, and Aziraphale suspected from his expression that this was the case, he found it _ slightly _endearing.

“This is like when you used to let those kids hang out in your shop, isn’t it,” he said. “The baby queers.”

“Don’t use that word. It’s not kind.”

“No, everyone uses it now. It’s the word. It’s _ reclaimed_.”

“Well, I don’t like it. Not for those youths. Not for those circumstances.”

Crowley looked at him in the mirror then. Anyone else would have found it hard to tell what face he was making exactly, under his sunglasses, but Aziraphale didn’t. “If you weren’t already an angel, darling,” Crowley said, “they’d make you a saint. St. Aziraphale of downtrodden teenaged… what do you say if you don’t say queers?”

“You don’t say anything.”

“Alright, I wasn’t meaning to have a go.”

“I know, dear, it’s only…”

“You want to invite them,” Crowley said, “to our cottage where we live.”

“Yes.”

“Two teenaged werewolves, at our cottage.”

“Oh, you know they’re not werewolves.”

“For how _ long_?”

“A week or two, that’s all.”

“Oh that’s all.”

Aziraphale let Crowley’s mocking tone wash over him. He made himself serene, beatific. He stared. This, too, was manipulative but he knew he wasn’t really changing the outcome. That was already decided. Crowley snorted. It was dark in the car, closed in by the rain, and that little snort felt intimate. It also meant yes.

“Would you please come here?” Aziraphale said, reaching out a hand. Crowley leaned into it but just slightly.

“Driving,” he said. “What’s it about?”

“About how much I love you.”

“You _ say _ that.”

“And you know how much I mean it.”

Too late, he wondered if saying it in that way was a little unfairly weighted against the joke, considering everything earlier, but Crowley only grunted. “I know.”

“Good.”

“I love you too.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said. “I can tell. You do such kind things for me.”

That made Crowley make a noise. A hmpf. Then another little grunt. He seemed to shift in his seat momentarily. “It’s nice to say,” he said, abruptly.

“What is?”

“I love you,” Crowley said. “It’s nice to say. I was going to say a joke about it but I don’t want to now. I wanted to say I love you for a long time and I’m not bored of it yet. I like saying it. So. There you go.”

Aziraphale actually felt his heart flutter. “I hope you never get bored of it.”

It was hard to tell if Crowley was aware of his wiles or wasn’t. His grin folded out slowly, from the middle of his mouth to the edges. He seemed pleased with himself, but more than that, just pleased in general. It was such a fundamentally Crowley expression Aziraphale found he had to force himself to stop gazing at it. 

“What shall we have when we get in? Rather fancy a nightcap,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale collected himself.

“Brandy and a fire.”

“Brilliant.”

They were silent for a little while, in each other’s company, thinking their own thoughts. The drive didn’t seem odd anymore. It seemed special. Going home, Aziraphale thought. Going home to bed.

“D’you know,” he said, out loud, “upon solemn reflection, I think I like the carpet we have.”

It was true, but he also said it, a little bit, on purpose to watch Crowley’s reaction. And it didn’t disappoint - Crowley made an enthusiastic open-mouthed expression, somewhere between mock-shock, actual shock, and laughter. He made it with his whole body. He shook his head. He grinned. And then he said, “well, yeehaw.”


End file.
